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THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE FUTURE 




THE BOIRVC METHOD 

This is a variation of the Moulin Process for determining the 
sensitiveness of a person to magnetic influence. As the subject does 
not know the operator's intention, theie can be no possibility of 
fraud. — I'aiie 88. 



THE PSYCHOLOGY OF 
THE FUTURE 

("L'AVENIR DES SCIENCES PSYCHIQUES") 



BY 

EMILE BOIRAC 

LATE RECTOR OF THE ACADEMY OF DIJON 

Author of "Our Hidden Forces'' (^'La Psychologie inconnue'') 



TRANSLATED AND EDITED WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY 

W. DE KERLOR 

ILLUSTRATED 




NEW YORK 

FREDERICK A. STOKES COMPANY 
PUBLISHERS 






Copyright, 1918^ by 
Frederick A. Stokes Company 



All rights reserved 



\t 



'^1^'i 



m 1 1 1918 

©a.A4925J3 






TRANSLATOR'S NOTE 

The immediate success which the translation of La 
psychologic inconnue {Our Hidden Forces) received, 
and the sympathetic response it created in all sections 
of the American public, justly encouraged me to trans- 
late die_£resent_work. Its title, '' The Psychology of 
the Future," seems to me fully justified; for the mat- 
ter contained in its pages constitutes an entirely new 
departure in the field of psychological study and ex- 
perimentation. 

Hitherto, psychological experimentation has been 
limited to the investigation of mental processes, to the 
principles of appeal and response as applied to business 
and everyday life, to the relieving of mental and nerv- 
ous ills, to self-analysis with a view to determining vo- 
cational aptitudes, the qualities and defects of the psy- 
cho-physiological organism of man. In a word, the 
psychology of the present day has limited itself to the 
field of man's conscious and unconscious, objective 
and subjective, activities; but it has not as systematic- 
ally devoted itself to the investigation and experimen- 
tation of his hyperconscious activities. 

In the world of learning, there are always two as- 
pects: the academic and the pioneer. As a rule, the 
academic aspect is years behind the true facts which 
constitute human knowledge. For years it lingers in 
reticence, routine, and scepticism. It abhors the birth 
of new things which tend to alter or change its funda- 



vi TRANSLATOR'S NOTE 

mental concepts of life and man. Its organism is like 
that of an old man : made up of habits, opinions and no- 
tions, content in routine. 

But, as in the scheme of the universe new things 
always supersede the old, and are revolutionary 
in their process of evolution, so we may trace, in 
the habits of the old man or of the old system, the ap- 
parent resistance to their adoption. Conventional 
thought and conventional habits form, therefore, the 
primary obstacles to the speedy evolution of human 
progress, in society as well as in knowledge. And if 
we could only remove the beam of conventional-think- 
ing from our eye, we would at once see clearly and 
justly into the realm of the mysterious subconscious 
and hyperconscious self. 

Although the subjects dealt with in this book have 
been known to exist by a few scientific pioneers of 
thought, and have been practised by a still greater 
number of unscientific enthusiasts, it is but very recently 
that the academic bodies of learning have been willing 
— though reluctantly so — to lend their ear to the 
overwhelming accumulation of facts. The mass of 
evidence, now gathered, of the phenomena of thought- 
transmission, divination, prophecy, psychic and mental 
healing, and transcendental manifestions, has opened 
wide the breach into the citadel of conservatism. 
These facts are at last about to conquer " their place 
in the sun " in the world of academic thought. They 
have crossed their Rubicon. 

Do we not already see experiments of thought-trans- 
mission in certain psychological laboratories? Are 
there not many large business houses employing the 



TRANSLATOR'S NOTE vii 

services of psychologists and psychics as advisers, 
whether in the selection of " the right peg for the right 
hole," or in the counseling of future policies? Are 
there not to be found, daily, advertising men and 
*' knights of the pen " who are consciously alive to the 
fact that their thoughts are flying about and are " being 
caught "? And where are the employers who are not 
conscious of the " harmonious atmosphere " of their 
secretaries and managers; and do they not reject those 
whose " personal atmospheres " they find not to har- 
monize with their own mental and personal atmos- 
pheres ? 

I feel that it would not be too presumptuous to say 
that when political, military, and business heads will 
have found the method whereby they can select their 
co-workers by their " personal atmospheres " uner- 
ringly, there will be fewer cabinet changes, fewer blun- 
ders made, and less time and energy lost, not to men- 
tion the friction and the life enmities often created. 
But theirs is not the business to find the method. It is 
for science to make haste and find it, and give it to the 
world. It is for scientists trained in the conventional 
schools of learning to divest themselves of their en- 
cumbering mental baggage, to take their coats off, and 
go energetically to work in their laboratories, with new 
methods of research and newer ideals. 

With the advent of radium, X-rays, wireless teleg- 
raphy, and telephony, new problems have been created 
to which new solutions have had to be found. With 
the coming of psycho-therapy and psycho-analysis — 
which have laid bare the soul of man, to himself and 
to others — new problems, also, have developed; new 



viii TRANSLATOR'S NOTE 

faculties have been found in activity. Within himself, 
man — the microcosm — has the potentialities of a 
universe: his will, his thoughts, his "radiations," his 
presentiments, his visions. 

Man : body, soul, and spirit. A carnal self, a mental 
self, an unconscious and a superconscious self. A 
higher self and a beastly-brutal self. Man's conscious- 
ness is the go-between that links the higher and the 
lower realms of his own universe. In the life of the 
poet, the artist, the mystic, consciousness of the higher, 
super-normal activities is of daily occurrence. Not so, 
however, with the materialist; for his mind is too en- 
grossed with material concepts: dollars and cents and 
power and possession. They obscure his consciousness 
of the higher, the better, the truer things of life. 

The democratic-consciousness which is sweeping the 
world to-day, hurling crowns and princes into the abyss 
of dark oblivion, heralds the coming of a new age. It 
speaks of the beginning of a new cycle in the evolution 
of man. It brings in its trail: freedom of thought, 
freedom of action, equality, and the emancipation from 
the old order of things. The old is making place for 
the new. A new sense is being born. It is the " sense 
of life." 

But on the battlefields of the old world many are 
they, also, who are developing a new sense: " the sense 
of death " — that inward sense, the sense of premoni- 
tion which tells the conscious self that the old must 
make place for the new. A new life in a new world; a 
new humanity in place of the old. 

The eighteenth century was the age of rationalist 
reaction. The nineteenth that of science and of me- 



TRANSLATOR'S NOTE ix 

chanlcal inventions, material withal. The twentieth is 
the age of psychology, the age of the " science of man." 
Vocational and applied psychology together with 
psycho-therapy already pave the way. Another step 
forward will bring us nearer to the realization of the 
Soul in man, then the God in man. 

May this work, therefore, help to hasten the making 
of the science of man. May it find a sympathetic re- 
sponse at the hands of young and new pioneers : makers 
of the new race where men shall judge their brothers, 
not in the light of their worldly, weighty possessions, 
but In the light of their souls, and with the " single eye " 
of their spirit. 

W. DE Kerlor. 

New York, January, 191 8. 



CONTENTS 

CHAPTER PAGE 

Translator's Note v 

Introduction i 

I How THE Psychical Sciences Stand To-Day 19 

II The Right and the Wrong Methods . . 32 

III Observation, the First Step 41 

IV How to Experiment 52 

V The Role of the Hypothesis 64 . 

VI Our Latent Psychic Faculties .... 76// 

VII Hypnotism, or Artificial Hypnosis ... 94 

VIII Suggestion: As a Fact and as an Hypoth- 
esis 107 

IX An Unknown Force: Animal Magnetism . 145 

X The Communication of Thought, or " Dia- 

PSYCHISM " 175 

XI Clairvoyance, or " Metagnomy " . . . .232 

XII Spiritism and Cryptopsychism 264 

Appendices 

Note I Science and Magic . . . .291 

Note II The Religious Problem and 

THE Psychical Sciences . . 296 

Note III The Radiation of the Human 

Brain 311 



ILLUSTRATIONS 

The Boirac Method Frontispiece^ 

FACING 
PAGE 

The Pendulum 2%^ 

Automatic Writing 60 

The Moutin Process 86 '^ 

Inducing Somnambulism 158 

Exteriorization of the Sensitiveness 214 

Crystal Gazing 258 



•^ 



INTRODUCTION 

Can the study of psychical phenomena really become 
a science? 

A science, according to the general conception, con- 
sists in a systematized ensemble of knowledge of facts, 
each clearly defined yet all so closely related as to form 
a veritable system in which each supports and explains 
the other in logical sequence: as, for example, mathe- 
matics. This was the idea of the ancient philosophers, 
and it has become the classical conception. 

Science as thus understood acquires a dogmatic 
authority. It is opposed absolutely not only to igno- 
rance, but also to more or less probable opinion or 
belief. When once established, it becomes as immu- 
table as Truth itself. It is transmitted through teach- 
ing; and the disciple or pupil can but accept it docilely 
from the hands of those who have received and treas- 
ured it. It is in this sense that the libraries, schools, 
universities, and academies have become the sanctu- 
aries of science. 

But it is evident that all those who hold this concep- 
tion find it difficult to think of psychical matters as a 
science. Vainly might one search for a series of doc- 
trines, solidly established and rigorously related, that 
would correspond to that title. But does such a con- 
ception of science actually conform to reality? Does 
it not represent an ideal toward which all the sciences 
lean, which might not be entirely realized In any of 



2 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE FUTURE 

them, not even In mathematics, the closest of all? 

If science were to fall from heaven, ready-made by 
some supra-terrestrial genius, it no doubt would verify 
the definition just given; as it is left in the hands of 
men to make, and as men must make it slowly, pro- 
gressively, not without hesitation and error, the result 
is that two periods are obtained: (i) that In which 
science is In the process of being made; (2) that in 
which it Is made, at least to some extent. This cor- 
responds to the period in-fieri of the scholastics, and to 
that of science in-facto. Perhaps these are not two 
successive periods, but rather two points of view which 
coexist and from which all science can and must be 
judged: the point of view of the researcher who creates 
It and that of the professor who teaches it. There Is 
always. In It, on the one hand a knowledge acquired and 
integral, and on the other hand a knowledge In the 
process of acquisition and Integration, a static in-facto 
and dynamic in-fieri. It can be demonstrated through 
numerous examples that the proportion of the in-facto 
and of the in-fieri varies from one science to another, 
and even in a particular science according to the period 
of Its history in which it is being considered. 

Mathematics appears to many the perfect type of 
established science, forever immobilized in the posses- 
sion of eternal truths. Yet do we not behold, with 
each successive generation, a host of new thinkers, con- 
quering new fields in the domain of thought? For a 
mathematician of genius, such as Descartes, Liebnitz, 
Cauchy, Poincare, for example, is not the real science 
that which he Invents and to which he gives life? 



INTRODUCTION 3 

The history of physics shows, it would seem, succes- 
sive periods in which the static and the dynamic view- 
points alternately predominate. Take the first half of 
the past century, for instance: the physicists were not 
far from considering that their science had been com- 
pleted, at least in its essential parts. Each chapter of 
which it was composed — weight, sound, light, heat, 
electricity — undoubtedly might be capable of new de- 
velopments; but it was not believed possible that any 
new chapters could be opened. Nature, as a whole, 
it was thought, was virtually understood in all her 
phases, and the task of the future would lie solely in 
depth and not in width. Yet, one after the other, the 
successive discoveries of the " X-rays '* and of the ra- 
diating properties of matter, radium, etc., came to de- 
throne the limits too hastily fixed. And it would not 
be an exaggeration to assert that what we know of 
physics to-day is practically nothing in comparison with 
what yet remains to be discovered. 

This is true also of chemistry and biology. For in 
these sciences too we can distinguish, on the one hand, 
an ensemble of acquired knowledge ready to be used 
for the purpose of education, while on the other hand 
we see an ensemble of researches being made, or still 
in the stage of project, awaiting the moment of being 
taken out of the laboratories then to be handed to the 
schools. 

Should we, then, reserve the name " science " ex- 
clusively for that of the two which turns its attention to 
the past, and refuse it to that which is directed toward 
the future ? Is not the researcher entitled to the name 



4 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE FUTURE 

of scientist at least as much as, if not more than, the 
professor? 

Let us say that the more complex a science is, the 
more difficult, the more recent its constitution, the 
greater is the part played by researches than that by 
knowledge. And this is just the position of the psy- 
chical sciences. As yet they are hardly organized, but 
this makes them all the more attractive for the student 
bent on research, for the unknown quantities are full of 
promises and of hopes. 

In order to justify the existence of these sciences, 
therefore, it is sufficient to show the existence of the 
object of their researches, and that it really belongs to 
the world of realities. 

That, precisely, is the aim of this book. 

Perhaps it would be well to trace the principal 
reason for the defiant objections leveled against psy- 
chical sciences. At first they were called occult sci- 
ences. They belonged in the beginning to that en- 
semble of empiric observations and traditions known 
as astrology, alchemy, chiromancy, magic, and other 
such pseudo-sciences of the Medieval and Renaissance 
periods. It is only since barely two centuries ago that 
they have emerged from this chaos, although we may 
still see the mystic attitude of mind of the ancient 
adepts in those who conduct their investigations to-day. 
This should form a stronger reason, therefore, for 
scientists to introduce, with all the concentrated efforts 
of their energies, the real scientific spirit of the experi- 
mental method. 



INTRODUCTION 5 

And, with this attitude of mind, just as astronomy 
emerged from astrology and chemistry from alchemy, 
so will the psychical sciences emerge from magic and 
sorcery. 

One might say that all the sciences, without excep- 
tion, and including mathematics, pass successively 
through two phases in their history: a mystic phase, to 
which occultism corresponds; and a positive phase, 
which is that of positive science. 

The sole difference between them Is that some passed 
rapidly from the first phase to the second; in certain 
others this passage was effected slowly and gradually; 
and in still others, it occurred after a greater lapse of 
time and the transition was sudden and quick. In this 
we find a sort of verification of the celebrated law of 
the three states formulated by the founder of the posl- 
tivlst school, Auguste Comte, according to which all 
human knowledge passes necessarily through the theo- 
logical state (or mystical) to the positive state (or sci- 
entific), passing through the metaphysical state (or 
philosophical) as Intermediary by its position and na- 
ture between the other two. 

It Is true that it might be objected that this trans- 
formation has not been quite complete and that In cer- 
tain of the sciences, and particularly In the psychical, 
the old or occult form remains side by side with the 
modern or positive form. At the present time there 
are still believers In animal magnetism and in spiritism 
whose state of mind does not differ to any appreciable 
extent from that of the occultists of the Middle Ages 
and of the Renaissance period. Similarly It may be 
said that alchemy and astrology still retain a host of 



6 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE FUTURE 

firmly convinced partisans and believers. This may be 
a regrettable fact, but is it astronomy and chemistry 
that suffer? The loss is wholly for those who persist 
in confounding doctrines built on mere faith and imag- 
ination with researches which depend exclusively upon 
experimentation and reasoning. 

Hitherto, we have spoken of the psychical sciences^ 
as if the study of psychical phenomena must necessarily 
be divided into several distinct sciences. But would it 
not be more legitimate to say that there is but one 
psychical science: that which we ourselves have called 
unknown psychology {psychologic inconnue) ? 

We have attempted to show that there is no con- 
tradiction in admitting certain particular psychical 
sciences side by side with a general psychical science, 
according to one's position: analytical or synthetical. 
On the one hand, the phenomena which are the object 
of these sciences can be classified in groups sufficiently 
distinct so that each of them may become a special 
science; on the other hand, they have in common such 
important characteristics, they are related to one an- 
other by such close and numerous ties, that, in order 
to study them profitably, one must necessarily take into 
consideration the keen affinity and the intimate solidar- 
ity which unites them. 

To designate these different sciences and their own 
particular orders of phenomena it has seemed to us 
indispensable to devise new names. This is done con- 
stantly in the case of all sciences which encompass new 
objects and new relations as they grow. In Our Hid- 
den Forces we found it necessary to introduce such 



INTRODUCTION 7 

new words as hypnology, cryptopsychism, psychody- 
namy, telepsychism, hyloscopy^ etc.; and in the present 
work we are using metagnomy, biactinism, diapsychism, 
etc. 

We have been reproached for the creation of these 
neologisms taken from the Greek, and which appear 
somewhat barbarous and pretentious. Yet the im- 
portance of the language and vocabulary in the gen- 
eral economy of science is generally recognized. Con- 
dillac's aphorism, " All errors, without exaggeration, 
proceed from our habit of using certain words before 
determining their proper signification, or even before 
having felt the need of determining it," is especially 
applicable to the psychical sciences. 

Unfortunately, the students of these sciences have 
not always been aware of the importance of having a 
really appropriate language. They were satisfied with 
the use of current words to designate new facts or to 
express new ideas ; and it is those very words which now 
are an obstacle to the formation of a rational vocabu- 
lary. For many of the difficulties which have impeded 
the progress of the psychical sciences have been due to 
the insufficiency of their verbal equipment. 

Take, for instance, the controversies between the 
School of Nancy and the School of the Salpetriere upon 
the nature of suggestion and hypnotism. In current 
language, the word suggestion designates a very simple 
and banal fact which, from the psychological point of 
view, is reduced to an association of ideas. To use it 
to designate an entirely different and less ordinary fact, 
in which the customary laws of thought and action ap- 
pear momentarily upset, — does this not give the im- 



8 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE FUTURE 

pression, prior to all examination, that the two facts are 
identical in reality? Similarly, when Braid coined the 
word hypnotism to designate a certain state in which 
human beings can be placed by means of certain proc- 
esses, he asserted that this state was of the same 
nature as sleep. It is wholly a theory which is insin- 
uated by this word, no less misleading than the word 
suggestion; and unless we were put on our guard we 
should be dragged into endless discussions such as were 
instigated by the Schools of Charcot, Liebeault, and 
Bernheim. 

We cannot propose the substitution of ideoplasty and 
hypotaxyj created by Durand de Gros, for the words 
suggestion and hypnotism, although the phenomena are 
rendered less equivocal by their use. It is too difficult 
to swim against the current of acquired habits ! 

In the same way, the term animal magnetism, intro- 
duced by Mesmer and his disciples to designate a whole 
ensemble of parapsychical facts, irreducible by hypoth- 
esis to the facts of suggestion and hypnotism notwith- 
standing their analogies, is responsible for a great 
part of the repugnance which scientists still manifest 
toward it. This term not only designates a certain 
order of facts : it implies at the same time an hypothe- 
sis, it prejudges the explanation of these facts. And 
as a result, all those to whom this hypothesis is repug- 
nant, all those who find the explanation inadmissible, 
reject the facts themselves and refuse to study them. 

For this reason we have found it desirable to sub- 
stitute a new term for the old. The word hiactinism, 
without allusion to any hypothesis, to any explanation, 
serves to designate merely " the action which the nerv- 



INTRODUCTION 9 

ous systems of two individuals may exert, one upon the 
other; any communication whatsoever that is estab- 
hshed between them," with the ensemble of the result- 
ing effects. 

A similar contention might be made as to the word 
spiritism, which is as equivocal and misleading as the 
others. For it is now applied to a certain philosophi- 
cal, if not religious, doctrine which admits of the inter- 
vention of the dead, — souls or spirits, — in the affairs 
of this world. And it is applied equally to a certain 
ensemble of enigmatical facts which some pretend to ex- 
plain by an intervention of this nature, but for which 
a totally different explanation may be conceived — facts 
that can and should become the objects of systematical 
study. Here, again, it would be necessary to find a new 
denomination, foreign to all the old associated ideas, 
one which would not implicate a sort of tacit faith in 
" discarnated spirits." But such a denomination has 
yet to be found. 

A third disadvantage in terms borrowed from or- 
dinary language is that they are difficult to handle and 
do not lend themselves well to the formation of deriva- 
tives and compound names, which science needs con- 
stantly. If, for instance, physics had to limit itself to 
the words warmth and heat it would be most embar- 
rassed, in speaking of all that relates to heat and 
warmth, in dealing with the measure of heat and the 
instruments pertaining to It, with the theory of the rap- 
ports existing between mechanical work and heat quan- 
tities, etc. All the difficulty is eliminated, however, 
by the use of such words as thermic, thermometer, ther- 
mometry, thermodynamic, and others. 



lo THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE FUTURE 

This is precisely what the psychical sciences will need 
in the process of their evolution: a vocabulary that is 
at once supple and easy of manipulation. We easily 
can see, in this connection, that the term hypnotism is 
preferable to nervous sleep or artificial somnambulism, 
which it has replaced; for how could one obtain with 
those words the equivalent of such derivatives as hyp- 
notic, hypnotizable, to hypnotize, hypnotist, hypnotizer, 
etc.? 

For the same reason, Instead of the terms lucidity, 
clairvoyance, second-sight, double-sight, etc., we would 
prefer the word metagnomy; for this, besides the 
greater generalization of Its meaning, has the advan- 
tage of giving the derivative metagnomic, and of per- 
mitting such expressions as metagnomic perception, 
metagnomic memory, metagnomic rays, metagnomic 
negatives, etc. And similar neologisms, In connection 
with other popular expressions, would be more than 
justifiable in replacing mental suggestions, transmission 
or penetration of thought, transfer of the personality, 
dissociation of consciousness, and even exteriorization 
of the sensibility, motricity, etc. 

But the constitution of a technical vocabulary for the 
psychical sciences will not be made without resistance 
and slow progress. The great number of people to 
whom the coining of new words Is repugnant and even 
those who believe in their necessity will not always be 
in accord as to their choice. All sciences, however, 
have encountered similar difficulties, until In the course 
of time the objections have been met. This, we may 
believe, will be equally true with the psychical sciences. 



INTRODUCTION ii 

Although psychical phenomena have aroused the 
curiosity of men for a long time past, the sciences which 
have these phenomena for their object have not yet 
been given a place in the ensemble of the sciences. Yet 
ft is clear enough, as the name itself indicates, that they 
are linked to psychology, not as a part of philosophy, 
but as an experimental science. 

If it be established that the phenomena are not only 
abnormal or super-normal, but essentially pathological, 
it could be said that they constitute a special branch of 
morbid psychology or psychopathology. But such a 
thesis is not yet proved. It would be more exact to 
say that they constitute a sort of side psychology, or 
parapsychology, recognizing, at the same time, that the 
relations between this and psychopathology are numer- 
ous and most important. 

It should not be forgotten that the divisions which 
we imagine in our classifications of the many different 
orders of natural phenomena are all more or less ar- 
bitrary and artificial. Thus psychology, in its en- 
semble, is inseparable from physiology; and physiology 
is inseparable from the physical sciences. The soul is 
non-existent without life; and life is not existent with- 
out matter. It should not be surprising, therefore, if 
the psychical sciences go even beyond psychology and 
penetrate physiology, especially the physiology of the 
brain and of the nervous system ; or perhaps they may 
go even farther, in the regions of physics, where the 
theory of the most subtle and imponderable forces of 
nature are elaborated. This is one of the reasons why 
these sciences can progress only slowly; for their prog- 



12 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE FUTURE 

ress is conditioned to a large extent by that of those 
more general sciences upon which they depend and to 
which they contribute.^ 

To conduct experimentation satisfactorily, researches 
specializing in the psychical sciences should be assured 
the constant collaboration of psychologists, physiolo- 
gists, and physicists thoroughly acquainted with the 
methods and results of their respective sciences. Or 
else each of the specialists in psychical research should 
be a combined physicist-physiologist-psychologist. 
That, however, is a difficult combination to realize. 
In fact, all those who hitherto have studied these phe- 
nomena have been recruited from among medical men 
and physiologists — Mesmer, Charcot, Dumontpallier, 
Bernheim, Richet, Joire, Janet, etc. ; from among physi- 
cists and chemists — Reichenbach, Gregory, William 
Crookes, Oliver Lodge, etc. ; or from among the ranks 
of philosophers, moralists, litterateurs — many were 
mere " amateurs " — Flournoy, William James, Fred- 
eric Myers, and most of the members of the S. P. R. 
of London and New York. It is perhaps the psycholo- 
gists who have been least numerous, although it would 
seem that psychology, more than any other branch of 
science, should be able to dissipate the heavy mist that 
still surrounds the psychical sciences. 

A frequent objection leveled against psychical re- 
search is that one cannot see what practical value it may 
have, even if it were to be brought to a satisfactory 

1 It cannot be believed otherwise than that the experimental re- 
searches conducted by William Crookes in certain parapsychical phe- 
nomena influenced him in his conceptions of the radio-activity of 
matter and of the discoveries which followed. 



INTRODUCTION 13 

conclusion. No science, we are taught, has as its goal 
the mere satisfaction of a purely speculative curiosity. 
Scientific theories are fully justified only when their 
application and the power they confer upon man assures 
him the ability to enslave the forces of nature at will. 
The difference between science and philosophy, or the 
ancient conception and the modern, is that to-day we 
expect from science not only a knowledge of reality, 
but also a knowledge of the means to modify and 
transform it for our own use. Said Auguste Comte: 
" Know, so that you may foresee and provide." 

If the psychical sciences do not meet this condition, 
they will not merit the name of science. 

Although we recognize the fact that science cannot 
consist in a sort of intellectual dilettantism which would 
have no interest in the aims of practical life, we must 
also appreciate that its proper and immediate object 
is, above all things, the real, and not merely the useful 
or proper; and that in the interest of its own task it 
should impose upon itself a provisional, relative, and 
apparent disinterestedness in regard to every other ob- 
ject. It is impossible for any one to anticipate what 
useful applications may result from the discovery of a 
truth which, at first sight, may appear thoroughly ster- 
ile in practical possibilities. The scientist who would 
aim systematically at the practical instead of first aim- 
ing at the real, would inevitably miss the real and the 
useful. 

In the psychical sciences, the first group — which 
includes all the hypnotic and suggestive facts — already 
has been advanced sufficiently far to permit of practi- 
cal applications. We do not refer to the useful con- 



14 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE FUTURE 

tribution to psychology in general for the experimental 
study of the various human faculties: consciousness, 
memory, will, etc. This usefulness might appear more 
theoretical than practical. We do not refer even to 
the services which this first group — hypnology — will 
render in obtaining knowledge, in a practical way, of 
the character of individuals, or in their education when 
the processes of ordinary pedagogy have failed, not- 
withstanding the interesting indications of Durand de 
Gros and Berillon. We refer especially to medicine; 
for it is here that hypnology has its most important 
applications. Every one knows the remarkable results 
obtained by the practitioners of the School of Nancy, 
whose method is now in current use in the practise of 
psycho-therapy, especially in the treatment of nervous 
affections. 

The other branches of psychical science are not as 
yet sufficiently advanced to be capable of being util- 
ized unerringly in practical ways. When, however, the 
day arrives when the study of animal magnetism, sys- 
tematically pursued in a scientific spirit, will confirm all 
that is expected of it, it will then positively bring a 
contribution to the science of therapeutics no less im- 
portant than that of hypnology. For whatever exag- 
gerations may be found in the stories of the marvelous 
cures reported by the chroniclers of the old mesmerists, 
it is perfectly evident that the facts described by them 
show that the biactinic force emanating from the human 
body produces some singular and powerful curative 
effects. The question would be to determine with 
sufficient precision the conditions in which these effects 
operate. 



INTRODUCTION 15 

Shall we ever be able to establish scientifically the 
reality, and so be able to formulate the laws, of the 
seemingly incomprehensible phenomenon of clairvoy- 
ance? If in the future the reply should be in the affirm- 
ative, it would not be too daring to say that there will 
be found in man an organ of communication which can 
be compared with telegraphy, telephony, and telepho- 
tography. Already there are many who have been 
asking whether it would not he possible to utilize the 
clairvoyant faculty in helping the police in their investi- 
gations; and particularly whether this could not he 
used in time of war, to foresee the means of attack and 
of defense of the enemy. But our present knowledge 
of the mechanism of clairvoyance is too imperfect to 
justify our risking an instrument of which we are not 
quite sure. Hyloscopy, on the other hand, under the 
form of actual prospecting for water and mineral de- 
posits, has already entered the field of practical appli- 
cations. Have not the French already used the divin- 
ing-rod and the pendulum to find water wells in Al- 
geria? Did not the English find, by the same means, 
wells of water during the Gallipoli expedition in re- 
gions thoroughly deficient in drinkable water? And 
it is said that the Germans found mines in their colonial 
possessions in Africa by means of the divining-rod. 
If, as is asserted, the special sensitiveness which is re- 
vealed by the movements of the rod or the pendulum 
is to be found existent, in a latent state, in the majority 
of people, it perhaps may be through this branch of 
the psychical sciences that the breach will be opened 
through which all the others shall pass, thereby making 
it impossible to doubt the reality of influences which to 



i6 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE FUTURE 

our material senses are imperceptible, yet which are 
capable of being revealed to us by reactions sui generis 
of our nervous system. 

To go a step farther, it is not premature to conceive 
the day when even the spiritoidal phenomena will be 
possible of practical applications. And when that is 
realized, it will mean in the affairs of men a revolution 
as considerable as that produced by the applications 
of steam or of electricity. 

Let us suppose for one moment that it can be proved 
experimentally that the strange phenomena of levita- 
tion, materialization, or of distant action, such as pro- 
duced by mediums like Daniel D. Home or Eusapia 
Palladino, are phenomena as real as the fall of a stone, 
an electrical discharge, or a chemical combination. 
Let us suppose still farther that we shall be able to 
prove experimentally that the cause of these effects re- 
sides in a particular condensation or transformation 
of a force emanating from the nervous system, and 
that we shall discover the laws according to which this 
force, latent in every human being, acts, develops, and 
transforms itself. What then would we need in order 
to derive from these theoretical constatations certain 
practical consequences of extraordinary value? It 
would be necessary that the laws should be such as to 
enable our own will to use them for the purpose of 
manipulating this force, as it already can utilize the 
laws that govern steam and electricity. 

It is evident that we do not know, to-day, whether 
such a condition can be realized. It may be that the 
productive energy of the Palladinian phenomena, owing 
to its nature, escapes the control of the will, exactly as 



INTRODUCTION 17 

that which produces storms and lightning, and which, 
in spite of our knowledge of the laws of electricity, we 
cannot and perhaps never shall be able to control at 
will. 

But it might also be otherwise. In this case it would 
be sufficient to condense this force artificially in order 
to obtain, through the sole resources of human organ- 
isms, certain mechanical, calorific, luminous, electrical 
and other effects, of which it is impossible to limit a 
priori the diversity and the power. 

Utopia, you will say? 

Perhaps ! But when Galvani studied the contrac- 
tions of the legs of the frogs he had suspended from 
his balcony, who could foresee that the force which 
manifested itself under his very eyes, In effects so 
puerile, would one day, in the hands of man, circulate 
ceaselessly thought, light, and motion around the globe ? 



THE PSYCHOLOGY OF 
THE FUTURE 

CHAPTER I 

HOW THE PSYCHICAL SCIENCES STAND TO-DAY 

Before entering upon the many special subjects 
which this book will cover, it may be well to give a 
general — and as exact as possible — idea of the actual 
state of the psychical sciences at the present time. In 
order to do this, we must first try to determine, on the 
one hand, those results that may be considered as hav- 
ing been acquired, and, on the other, the problems that 
are still unsolved, the researches that still remain to be 
undertaken. 

It is this balance of the psychical sciences that we 
shall endeavor to establish in the present chapter. 

I 

First of all, by far the most important result — ob- 
tained little by little, and not without much struggle 
and great effort, during the second half of the past 
century — is the recognition of the existence of the psy- 
chical sciences. 

Just how far the domain of psychical phenomena ex- 
tends, and where in that domain the field of reality 
ends and that of illusion begins, are questions that still 

19 



20 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE FUTURE 

are being debated, and will continue to be debated for 
many years to come. But there are at least two points 
upon which, we believe, all those capable of understand- 
ing the terms fully agree : 

First, the reality of psychical phenomena,^ constitut- 
ing in nature an order sui generis, undoubtedly related 
to the ensemble of psychological phenomena but having 
their own particular characteristics and their own pe- 
culiar laws. 

Second, that these phenomena can and must be ob- 
jects of science; and, as such, the psychical sciences aire 
legitimate, as worthy of being studied as are physical, 
biological, or social sciences. 

Those who devote their time and labor to this study 
are no longer necessarily considered as charlatans or 
fools. There is in the attitude of the public — and par- 
ticularly of the scientific public — regarding psychical 
phenomena and the psychical sciences, a change that is 
becoming more and more pronounced; and this change, 
in a more or less distant future, will enable these now 
imperfectly defined sciences to be definitely organized. 

All the honor of this change, which is nearly a revo- 
lution, must be credited to the work of the Schools of 
the Salpetriere and Nancy, and to that of the English 
Society, and its young sister, the American Society, for 
Psychical Research — in a word, to such men as Colo- 
nel de Rochas and Professors Charles Richet and 
Flournoy. 

The very fact that the Academie des Sciences has ac- 
cepted the foundation of a prize ^ destined to encour- 

1 Called occult by Grasset, metapsychic by Charles Richet, and 
parapsychic by Flournoy and the author of this book. 

^Publisher's Note: The Fanny Eraden Prize. In a competitive 



THE PSYCHICAL SCIENCES TO-DAY 21 

age psychical research concerning " suggestion, hypno- 
tism, and physiological actions likely to be exerted from 
a distance upon the human organism in general " is 
sufficient to measure the road traversed since the com- 
paratively recent time when the same Academie refused 
to receive any communication relative to animal mag- 
netism, relegating it to the ranks of the fourth dimen- 
sion and perpetual motion. And is it not a significant 
fact that such savants as d'Arsonval, Branly, and the 
late Pierre Curie participated in the whole series of 
experiments made In 1906 with the medium Eusapia 
Palladino at the Institut General Psychologiquef 

II 

A second result which appears equally to have been 
acquired is the recognition that the only method that 
can adequately be applied to the study of psychical 
phenomena is the experimental method, such as that 
used by the precise and practical Claude Bernard and 
Pasteur, with the modifications of detail necessary to 
adapt it to the particular conditions of this class of 
phenomena. 

Nearly all scientists agree that it Is no longer a ques- 
tion of forming, a priori, systematic theories as to the 
universal or life fluid, or the constitution of matter or 
of spirit, and from them deducing, without either ex- 
periment or control, the explanation of more or less ex- 
traordinary facts. It Is these facts themselves which 

contest, two thousand francs of this prize was awarded to Prof. Boirac 
for the best work submitted to the Academie des Sciences on these 
subjects. His contribution, La Psychologie inconnue, was translated 
into English by Dr. W. de Kerlor, and published in America under 
the title, Our Hidden Forces. 



22 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE FUTURE 

it is necessary first of all to verify, to observe, to 
analyze, to classify, and then to submit to repeated and 
varied experiments before patiently deducing the laws 
which control them — laws always subject to revision. 
That the hypothesis has its place and its role in this 
method is fully recognized; but under the express con- 
dition that, suggested by phenomena already known, 
its object is not to give us an ingenious though sterile 
explanation, but to help us in the discovery of phe- 
nomena still unknown, and to enable us to produce 
these phenomena by new experiments. 

That which at the present time remains to be deter- 
mined, and which the development of the psychical 
sciences will gradually establish, is (i) the particular 
method to be used in the study of these sciences — the 
manner of observation and of experimentation espe- 
cially adapted to the nature of the phenomena to be 
studied — and (2) the hypotheses that will permit 
experimenters to see their way clearly in their re- 
searches and to advance to the point where they will 
discover facts still unknown and laws still unformu- 
lated. 

Ill 

It is necessary to review briefly the different branches 
of the psychical sciences in order to show the extent 
of the progress each has made. For this purpose we 
may use the classification suggested in Our Hidden 
Forces,^ as it seems both practical and convenient. 

^ Our Hidden Forces {La Psychologie inconnue), Emile Bolrac. 
Translated by Dr. W. de Kerlor. (New York: Frederick A. Stokes 
Company.) 



THE PSYCHICAL SCIENCES TO-DAY 23 

The two Congresses of Experimental Psychology held 
in Paris in the years 191 1 and 19 13 adopted it in ar- 
ranging the program of their work; and most of the 
terms comprised in it are entering more and more 
into current usage among authors whose works lie in 
the field of psychical sciences. 

In this classification the psychical phenomena — or 
parapsychic, according to the definition we have given : 
" the phenomena which, produced in animate beings or 
as an effect of their action, do not seem to be entirely 
explicable by the laws and forces of nature already 
known " — are divided into three great classes, super- 
imposed one upon the other in the order of their in- 
creasing complexity and difficulty, and in such way that 
knowledge of the first is an indispensable condition and 
an efficacious instrument in the study of those that fol- 
low. 

The first of these three classes is that of hypnoidal 
phenomena. These apparently may be explained by 
forces already known, supposing only that these forces, 
under certain conditions, operate according to laws of 
which we are still ignorant, or which are known to us 
only imperfectly — laws more or less different from 
those which are now known. To this class belong the 
phenomena of hypnotism and suggestion, especially 
studied by the Schools of the Salpetriere and Nancy, and 
the phenomena of dissociation of the personality which 
Dr. Pierre Janet submitted to a methodical investigation 
for the first time in his book, Automatisme psycholo^ 
giqiie, and carried farther in another work, Nevroses et 
idees fixes. The general term hypnology may be given 
to this first class of phenomena, thus reserving the term 



24 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE FUTURE 

cryptopsychism ^ for the special study of the phenomena 
of subconsciousness. 

The second class is that of magnetoidal phenomena. 
These appear to involve the intervention of forces still 
unknown, distinct from those that science has so far 
discovered and studied, but of a physical nature and 
more or less analogous to the radiating forces of 
physics: light, heat, electricity, magnetism, etc. In 
this class there are three distinct groups of phenomena, 
which nevertheless are imperceptibly related to one an- 
other. They are ; 

(i) Animal magnetism; or, as the English aptly 
call it, mesmerism. 

(2) Telepsychic phenomena, comprising numerous 
varieties, such as the transmission or penetration of 
thought, the exteriorization of the sensitiveness, psy- 
chometry, telepathy, clairvoyance or lucidity, etc. 

(3) Hyloscopic phenomena^ where physical mat- 
ter appears to exert over animate beings, especially 
human beings, an action that does not seem to be ex- 
plicable by any physical or chemical properties already 
known and that seems, consequently, to reveal in it a 
force irreducible to any that science has studied up to 
the present time. To this third group of magnetoidal 
phenomena belong the effects obtained by seekers of 
subterranean sources of water and metals, as demon- 
strated by the rod- and pendulum-diviners who so 
strongly aroused public interest during the Congress 
of Experimental Psychology held in Paris in 19 13. 

The third and last class is that of spiritoidal phe- 

*This term has been adopted by Prof. Flournoy in his book, Esprits 
et mediums. 



THE PSYCHICAL SCIENCES TO-DAY 25 

nomena. These also seem to Imply the hypothesis of 
agents as yet unknown; but in this case they are agents 
of a psychological nature^ more or less analogous to 
human intelligence, situated, perhaps, outside of our 
ordinary world, in a plane of reality exterior to that in 
which we live. This class embraces all the phenomena 
of spiritism or mediumism when it does not seem that 
they may properly be included in either of the preceding 
classes — disregarding, of course, the dogmatic asser- 
tion as to their real causes. 

It is in the psychical sciences of the first degree, hyp- 
nology and cryptopsychism, that we find the greatest 
number of results acquired — results that now are in- 
contestably established. In this field we are on nearly 
firm ground. More than one question of detail still 
remains obscure and uncertain, but it can be said that, 
on broad lines at least, these sciences are definitely con- 
stituted. 

In spite of a few isolated cases of the old skepticism,^ 
there exists no doubt as to the fact that a human being 
may, under certain conditions, sink into a particular 
state of torpor and automatism, where certain of his 
faculties are more or less annihilated while others are 
singularly exalted, and that the characteristics of this 
state, called hypnotic, are more or less variable, and 
are known as catalepsy, lethargy, somnambulism, etc. 
There exists no doubt that suggestion — that Is to say, 
the human word, or, to go back to Its origin, the 
thought, as a species of Imagination and faith — can 
exercise a quasi-magical action upon not only the facul- 
ties of our moral being, but also the functions of our 

^ Prof. Babinski, for instance, declares that it is impossible to know 
if hypnosis is not always a case of simulation. 



26 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE FUTURE 

organism. Nor can there exist any doubt that such 
action is able, without our knowledge, to produce in 
us beneath our conscious personality another person- 
ality that is still ourselves yet appears to be some one 
else : a personality that feels, thinks, and acts, entirely 
without our being conscious of it except for its exterior 
manifestations. 

All these points are firmly and incontestably estab- 
lished. There now remains the necessity for knowing 
more precisely the determining conditions of the dif- 
ferent phenomena, the study of their effects, the prac- 
tical applications that may be drawn from them. 

In passing to the psychical sciences of the second class 
— magnetoidal phenomena — we enter a region little 
explored by scientists, who have been unwilling to risk 
themselves there, for fear of compromising their pro- 
fessional dignity or their reputation as prudent and 
serious persons. The number of results acquired in 
this class, therefore, is much less considerable than in 
the preceding class. Here all is more or less doubtful, 
or at least invariably contested. The facts are either 
denied or ignored, or else they are treated as effects of 
the imagination, or attributed to fraud. In the most 
favorable hypothesis they are credited to will, or to 
some force that, temporarily, it is impossible to analyze 
from facts of the first class. 

It well seems, however, that the day may not be 
very far off when science will end by recognizing the 
existence of a force emanating from the human organ- 
ism, really of the nerves and of the brain, and capable 
of acting at a distance. That force is now almost uni- 



THE PSYCHICAL SCIENCES TO-DAY 27 

versally admitted to explain the phenomena of trans- 
mission of thought and telepathy. 

Owing to a frequent confusion of terms, due to their 
similarity, suggestioUy which is no longer contested, 
permits us to admit the phenomenon of transmission of 
thought christened mental suggestion. And this latter 
apparently does not differ essentially from the other, 
in that it implies, above all, an influence exerted by one 
brain upon another through a field imperceptible to our 
senses^ Strange to say, however, animal magnetism, 
which seems to be the more general phenomenon — the 
condition for mental suggestion — is denied its right 
of existence, when mental suggestion is but one of its 
particular consequences. 

But sooner or later, no doubt, when logic recovers 
its right. It will be recognized that animal magnetism 
conceals in reality the key to psychical phenomena under 
all their forms. This Is one of the truths that we espe- 
cially endeavored to establish In Our Hidden Forces; 
and we hope that our example may encourage other 
researchers to labor in this field, so that there may be 
acquired to science one more definite result. 

The recent scientific discovery of X-rays and of 
emanations from radium has disposed savants to admit 
more easily the existence in nature of a multitude of 
radiations and Influences too subtle to be observed or- 
dinarily by our senses ; and it is perhaps this which ex- 
plains the reception — rather than the encouragement 
— given by the scientific world to the recent experiments 
of water-diviners. 

There, too, a result seems to have been acquired. 



28 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE FUTURE 

However, it has not been definitely decided that the 
movements of the divining-rod or of the pendulum are 
caused, as Chevreul claimed, solely by the unconscious 
thought of the operator, to the exclusion of all objective 
influences. And one is not obliged to believe that such 
thought is not under some secret influence of an un- 
known though real force. 

Hyloscopy now is merely at the threshold of science ; 
but it will not he long before it will have crossed over. 

The phenomenon of clairvoyance, whose mysterious 
mechanism passes all human understanding, occupies, 
as it were, the middle position between hyloscopy and 
telepsychism, since it supposes an action exerted by 
objects, in spite of sometimes enormous distances, upon 
the sensibility of the subject; and in the same subject a 
faculty of perception susceptible of being brought into 
play by this remote and Incomprehensible action. 

Science is far from admitting the reality of this phe- 
nomenon, but it Is beginning to submit it to scientific 
study; and such works as those of Edmond Duchatel 
on Psychometry and Dr. Osty on Lucidity and Intuition 
undoubtedly hasten the monlent when the phenomenon, 
being recognized as real, will enable us to discover 
experimentally the laws that regulate it. 

At the present time we may see in those who study the 
phenomenon of clairvoyance a tendency to place it on 
the same level as that of penetration of thought — that 
is to say, to believe that the visions of clairvoyants 
are not connected directly with the objects themselves 
but with the human brains In which the objects are rep- 
resented. In other words, clairvoyance might be 
essentially not a rapport of brain with object, but a rap- 




THE PENDULUM 



Any one susceptible to magnetic influence will follow, involun- 
tarily, the nriovements of the operator's hand, even when it is not 
in contact with the shoulder. 



THE PSYCHICAL SCIENCES TO-DAY 29 

port of brain with brain. Thus would be effaced the 
distinction which early magnetizers established between 
real clairvoyance or lucidity and the transmission of 
thought. 

It is left to future researches to solve the question 
definitely and finally. 

There remains the science of the third class, which 
has for its object the troublesome and baffling phe- 
nomena of spiritism. The farther we advance in our 
inquiries in this field, the more rare become the results 
acquired. Let us not believe, however, with the or- 
dinary public, that these phenomena have nothing of 
truth in them. For it is certain, it has been proved be- 
yond all doubt, that tables turn and rap, that they make, 
by means of certain codes, intelligible answers to ques- 
tions that are asked them. And It is incontestably 
proved that certain individuals, called mediums, do 
write, speak, and act, without being conscious of what 
they are doing, exactly as if they were the instruments 
of foreign personalities. All these facts are amply 
established; it is only the Ignorant who deny them. 

Now, to what cause must they be attributed? Are 
they, as their appearances suggest, as the mediums in- 
sist, the effects and the proofs of the intervention of 
spirits? Is it really the souls of the dead who come 
from the other world to cause the tables to move and 
who inhabit momentarily the bodies of the living? 

In this there Is a wholly different problem. 

That which Is acquired Is the reality of the spirltoldal 
phenomena, at least of a certain number of them ; that 
which Is far from being acquired In the manner in which 
they may be explained. 



30 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE FUTURE 

To admit these phenomena does not necessarily mean 
admitting such or such explanation that may be pro- 
posed. From the viewpoint of the scientist, the ex- 
planation, whatever it may be, is of secondary import- 
ance ; the essential thing is the methodical study of the 
facts, their establishment and their analysis. To prove 
or to refute a certain philosophic or religious doctrine 
is not sufficient; it is necessary to know whether certain 
facts actually occur, and, if so, how they occur. 

The most important results will be acquired in re- 
searches of this order only when all those whose ex- 
periments lie in this field are persuaded that it is with 
that attitude of mind that they must labor. The ex- 
perimental method only, loyally and patiently practised, 
will enable the researcher to ascertain if certain phe- 
nomena generally considered unbelievable — levitation, 
apports, materialization — are actually real or if they 
are but " tricks " and fraud. This method alone will 
permit him to arrive at interpretations — tentative 
without doubt and hypothetical, but useful nevertheless 
to guide the experimenter through obscurities more im- 
penetrable than those of the forest of Dante's Inferno, 

IV 

However imperfect may be the actual state of the 
psychical sciences at the present time, this brief review 
shows that they are sufficiently organized to live and to 
be developed regularly; that experimenters may be 
assured of the reality of their object, each being in 
the firm possession of his method, a certain number of 
essential results already having been acquired. 

What is it that is necessary for the hastening of their 



THE PSYCHICAL SCIENCES TO-DAY 31 

evolution, that the number of results may be Increased 
steadily from day to day? 

First of all, that public opinion, better informed, may 
understand the interest and the utility of the researches 
and may become accustomed to considering them as 
real sciences, and not as playthings, oracles, or pastimes 
for society. No less important is the necessity for 
establishing " numerous centers of research through- 
out the civilized world — institutes and laboratories 
where researchers who are specially trained Into scien- 
tific and philosophical discipline, and accorded the 
same respect by other scientists as Is given to physicians, 
chemists, and physiologists, could devote themselves ex- 
clusively to the exploration of the psychical field in its 
widest sense, and where they could check each other 
constantly." ^ 

^ Our Hidden Forces. 



CHAPTER II 

THE RIGHT AND THE WRONG METHODS 

The question of the method to be adopted in the 
study of the psychical sciences is of great importance 
when considering that at the present time these sciences 
are still in the form of an enormous mass of infinitely 
diverse, complex, mysterious, sometimes contradictory, 
facts, regarding which there arise the most enigmatic 
problems. 

Is it possible to establish order in all this confusion? 
If so, let us see how. 

I 

One fact imposes itself upon our attention. The 
different phenomena comprised in the psychical sciences 
are divided naturally into groups sufficiently distinct 
that each of these groups can and should become a 
special science in itself. Yet they have in common such 
important characteristics, and they are connected by 
relations so numerous and so closely woven, that it is 
impossible to study them satisfactorily if we do not 
take into account their deep affinities and their intimate 
solidarity. It Is because of having disregarded this 
twofold circumstance that the greater part of the re- 
searchers have hitherto erred au hasard or their 
methods have remained unimproved. 

In the prescientific epoch of their history, the psy- 

32 



RIGHT AND WRONG METHODS 33 

chical sciences were found, pell-mell with astrology, 
alchemy, and magic, in the obscure chaos of occultism; 
and this state of confusion began to be cleared up only 
toward the end of the eighteenth century, when Mes- 
mer and his disciples aroused public curiosity about the 
phenomena of animal magnetism which they produced. 

It is then that analysis was introduced into the study 
of psychical facts, and it resulted, at one and the same 
time, in the necessary precisions and the inevitable con- 
tradictions. 

Braid recognized the reality of a certain state of the 
nervous system provoked by physical actions — such 
as the prolonged fixation of gaze upon a brilliant point 
— and he fully described the principal effects. How- 
ever, outside of hypnotism thus defined, he did not ad- 
mit as real anything more from among all the strange 
and wonderful facts reported by the early observers. 
The School of the Salpetriere confined Its doctrine 
within these same limits. And so, also, similar to 
Abbe Faria and General Noiset, the School of Nancy, 
with Liebeault, Liegeois, and Bernhelm, studied the 
power of thought and idea, allied to belief and emotion, 
upon the mind and the human organism, and proclaimed 
that suggestion is in itself " the key to all the phe- 
nomena of hypnosis." All so-called psychical facts, 
when real, are caused by suggestion; all facts not so 
caused are purely Imaginary. 

Thus, under the exclusive influence of analysis, each 
searcher specializes In the study of a certain order of 
phenomena, and systematically Ignores or denies all 
those that may exist outside of his own field of study 
and experimentation. The same narrowness is shown 



34 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE FUTURE 

by the disciples of Mesmer, who, for the greater part, 
refused to recognize hypnotism and suggestion as being 
side by side with and quite distinct from animal mag- 
netism. 

With the study of spiritistic phenomena and those of 
mental suggestion and telepathy, two new branches of 
researches spring from the main trunk of psychism. 
But here still we find the same tendency to believe that 
each of these studies can suffice entirely in itself, and 
constitute alone the totality of the psychical sciences. 

The true method is to give to analysis and to syn- 
thesis the part that legitimately belongs to each of them. 

It is absolutely necessary that the multitude of 
psychical phenomena be divided into a certain number 
of groups, and that these groups be studied separately. 
For the human mind, study is not possible, science is not 
possible, without division, order, classification. An- 
alysis is in itself the very condition of synthesis; every 
synthesis that is not preceded by analysis is necessarily 
confused. That is why, in Our Hidden Forces, we 
were compelled to classify the different psychical 
sciences according to three great divisions : hypnoidal, 
magnetoidal, and spiritoidal. And under these heads 
we arranged the different groups of phenomena cov- 
ered by them, giving to each a special name — hypnol- 
ogy, cryptopsychism, psychodynamy, telepsychism, hy- 
loscopy, etc. — thus recognizing, as it were, their dis- 
tinct individuality. 

But any such classification, in drawing the many and 
varied psychical sciences together into unity, compels 
the mind to consider them as necessarily coordinated 
among themselves. They are independent, though at 



RIGHT AND WRONG METHODS 35 

the same time solidary, parts of one and the same 
whole. 

Therefore, in the pursuit of any one of these partic- 
ular sciences — for example, hypnotism or suggestion 
— it may be well, in order to advance the analysis as 
far as possible, to consider the psychical facts from a 
certain angle only, disregarding all the facts and all 
the elements of facts that are not visible from that 
angle. It must not be forgotten, however, that this 
is but an artifice of the method; that, if one's special 
branch of pursuit succeeds in realizing, in its concep- 
tions or in its experimentations, that isolation of one of 
the essential elements of psychism, it does not follow 
that in reality that element may not often be inseparably 
united to other elements equally essential, objects of 
some other branch of science. 

Thus the point of view of the synthesis must always, 
in psychical sciences, complete and correct the point of 
view of the analysis. 

II 

However, it must be acknowledged that although the 
different psychical sciences are connected with and de- 
pendent upon one another, they are not all on the 
same plane. There exists between them a certain 
order, a certain hierarchy of connections and dependen- 
cies. Thus the simplest, the most elementary phenom- 
ena, the easiest to isolate and to reproduce experiment- 
ally, come logically first, before those that are on a 
higher plane, that are more complex, more difficultly 
controlled by the experimenter, and consequently are 
relatively more independent. 



36 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE FUTURE 

This is, we believe, a point of extreme importance, 
one upon which it is necessary to insist. 

It determines the general direction of the method in 
psychical research, if it be true that the human brain 
must, according to the precept of Descartes, " conduct 
one's thoughts in order, by beginning with the simplest 
and the most easily understood objects and climbing 
little by little, by degrees as it were, to the knowledge 
of the most complex. . . ." 

Let us apply this particular rule to the study of the 
psychical sciences. The result is that the science of 
hypnoidal phenomena must be considered as the pre- 
liminary condition of the study of magnetoidal phe- 
nomena; and that these two must be advanced suffi- 
ciently far before it will be possible to begin, with any 
hope of success, the scientific exploration of spiritoidal 
phenomena. 

Up to the present time those savants who have ven- 
tured into this field have attempted to study only the 
most extraordinary phenomena, those that most excite 
the curiosity and stir the imagination: in other words, 
the spiritoidal phenomena which assume the strangest 
forms, such as are reported by William Crookes, de 
Rochas, Richet, etc. In a similar way^ in studying the 
phenomena of telepathy — of which the English and 
American Societies for Psychical Research have col- 
lected numerous examples — the savants have confined 
themselves to those magnetoidal phenomena in which 
the mechanism is the most obscure and the most com- 
plex. 

Is not such a method directly contrary to the principle 
that we have laid down? 



RIGHT AND WRONG METHODS 37 

But that principle has already been contested. Dr. 
Gustave Geley, In a remarkable study on " a special 
experimental method in metapsychism," after having 
remarked, with ourselves, that " all the metapsychic 
phenomena, from the simplest and most elementary to 
the highest and most complex, are absolutely con- 
nected," affirms that " the scientific method, fully ade- 
quate to the new science, resides entirely in this for- 
mula: to consider as temporarily negligible all the 
elementary phenomena and to attack immediately and 
systematically the most complex phenomena that are 
known to us^ He Is fully aware that " such a 
methodological principle is revolutionary." It con- 
flicts, he says, with the teachings of the most eminent 
psychlsts. " It breaks away from the standard, classi- 
cal method, admitted by all the other sciences, in which 
it is necessary always to proceed from the known to 
the unknown and from the simple to the complex." 

But this savant does not stop there ; for, according to 
him, ** in metapsychism the simplest is found to be the 
most difficult to recognize." Consequently, it is by 
the study of physical phenomena, in preference to in- 
tellectual, that we are asked to begin the systematic In- 
vestigation of metapsychism. And from among the 
physical phenomena, that of materialization should be 
the first. 

It Is apparent that this author understands by '* met- 
apsychism " not the ensemble of the psychical phe- 
nomena (or par apsy chic, to use our own term) — with 
its three relatively distinct branches and the whole in- 
separably connected and hierarchically superposed — 
but exclusively a section of that ensemble, the third and 



38 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE FUTURE 

last, the spiritoidal phenomena, commonly called spir- 
itism. 

If the word psychical be kept to designate, as usage 
has established it, all phenomena whatsover of the 
unknown in psychology, it will enable us to distinguish, 
on the one hand, the phenomena properly called para- 
psychic, and, on the other hand, the metapsychic phe- 
nomena, which it seems very difficult to strip of their 
supernatural or extra-natural appearances. 

It is not a question, therefore, with this author, of 
the general method of parapsychism, including at the 
same time parapsychism properly called and meta- 
psychism, but uniquely, exclusively, of the special 
method of metapsychism, which he seems to consider 
as absolutely independent, separable by right and in 
fact from the rest of parapsychism; susceptible conse- 
quently to be approached de piano, without previous re- 
course to the study of the antecedent disciplines. 

We should not be willing, on our part, to admit any 
such viewpoint. 

As we shall show later in detail, when considered in 
themselves, all hypotheses as to their origin being dis- 
regarded, the metapsychic (or spiritoidal) phenomena 
do not differ essentially from the others: there can 
always be found in each of them a correspondent of 
the same kind in the series of phenomena that are 
really parapsychic (hypnoidal and magnetoidal). 
Thus the state of trance of a medium is a fact wholly 
analogous to the state of hypnosis of a subject placed 
in catalepsy or somnambulism; the spiritistic messages 
obtained by means of the table, automatic writing, etc., 
singularly resemble the facts of dissociation of the 



RIGHT AND WRONG METHODS 39 

personality experimentally provoked ; the phenomena of 
thought-reading or of clairvoyance, frequently men- 
tioned in the reports of spiritistic seances, are analogous 
to those of perceptive telepsychism or of psychometry, 
observed outside of all spiritistic ambient, etc.^ 

Spiritism thus appears, as we have said, a " spon- 
taneous synthesis of all or nearly all the parapsychic 
facts determined by a certain nervous and mental state " 
— to which perhaps may be given, with Professor 
Flournoy, the name spiritogene. This Is why science, 
faithful to the principle of economy, prefers, until 
the contrary be proved, to consider spiritoidal (or 
metapsychic) facts as reducible to facts of the preced- 
ing orders, or at least attempts that reduction as far 
as possible. 

Even if admitting the hypothesis of spirits and their 
effective participation in the production of spiritoidal 
phenomena, it Is necessary to note that " the whole 
action of these spirits consists in arousing In certain 
susceptible subjects (mediums) the greater part of the 
hypnoidal and magnetoldal phenomena (hypnotism, 
suggestion, dissociation of the personality, telepathy, 
clairvoyance, etc.) constated In ordinary subjects, either 
spontaneously or as the effect of the experimenter's 
action. It can be said that spirits operate exactly as 
do hypnotists and mesmerists." 

Is it not right, then, to conclude that " from the point 
of view of the method, the study of spiritoidal phe- 

1 For this reason we cannot well agree with Dr. Geley that the 
study of the " supernormal and subconscious faculties of vision at a 
distance without the aid of the senses, of telepathy, of thought-reading, 
of lucidity," appertains essentially to metapsychism. Its place seems 
to us to be incontestably marked in parapsychism properly called. 



40 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE FUTURE 

nomena must be strictly subordinated to that of phe- 
nomena of the two preceding orders, and that it is 
only when these have been advanced sufficiently far 
that the experimenter can begin to see his way a Httle 
more clearly in the study of the third order " — in 
other words, that parapsychism is the necessary intro- 
duction, the inevitable pathway to metapsychism? 

Hence, to begin the study of the ensemble of para- 
psychic phenomena, or metapsychic, by attacking first 
and exclusively a phenomenon as complex and as diffi- 
cult to manage as that of materialization, seems to 
us to be comparable to physicists who would regret that 
the study of electricity or of physics in general had not 
begun with the study of globe lightning — a groblem 
certainly highly interesting, but the solution of which 
will be found only in a more or less distant future, and 
because of the increasing extent of our knowledge in 
electricity and other branches of physics. 



CHAPTER III 

OBSERVATION, THE FIRST STEP 



It is not enough to show the general direction of the 
method in the psychical sciences ; it is necessary also to 
determine the nature and the rapports of the different 
processes of which the method is composed. 

Whatever may be the particular nature of the facts 
under study, all sciences based upon facts are necessarily 
and exclusively amenable to the experimental method. 
Those — as certain theosophists or certain occultists — 
who would pretend to build up the science of psychical 
facts upon the foundation of authority or of reasoning 
would succeed only in excluding psychical facts from 
science. 

The experimental method, as we have shown else- 
where,^ consists essentially of four processes, disposed 
in the following order: 

( 1 ) Observation 

(2) Hypothesis 

( 3 ) Experimentation 
(4) Induction 

The order has in this case such great Importance that 
if, keeping the same elements, we dispose them in any 

^Our Hidden Forces, 

41 



42 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE FUTURE 

other manner, the ensemble obtained is not the experi- 
mental method, but a method wholly different. 

Thus observation in the experimental method has 
but one aim — to make possible the hypothesis ; the 
hypothesis has but one aim — to make possible the 
experimentation; just as the experimentation has but 
one aim — to make possible the induction. From ob- 
servation to supposition; from supposition to experi- 
mentation; from experimentation to induction — that 
IS the succession, the necessary subordination of the 
proceedings in the experimental method. 

Of these four operations, the first and the third — 
observation and experimentation — are processes of 
information, of constatation of the particular facts. 
The second and the fourth — hypothesis and induc- 
tion — are processes of interpretation, of reasoning re- 
lating to general laws. The originality of the experi- 
mental method consists in the fact that it counterchecks 
the two kinds of operations In such a way that they 
provoke and complete or control each other. 

The entire method can be summarized in the fol- 
lowing formula : 

First period: Preparatory constatation (obser- 
vation). 
Second period: Temporary interpretation (hy- 
pothesis). 
Third period: Decisive constatation (experi- 
mentation). 
Fourth period: Definitive interpretation (induc- 
tion). 
It is by the persevering and scrupulous application of 
the experimental method, as it is thus comprised, that 



OBSERVATION, THE FIRST STEP 43 

the study of psychical phenomena will be progressively 
transformed into a real science. 

But the processes of this method, owing to the pecu- 
liar conditions in which psychical phenomena present 
themselves, assume in their study particular character- 
istics which it is important to note. 

II 

In natural science — physics, chemistry, physiology, 
etc. — observation is made or can always be made di- 
rectly: the savants themselves, by means of their own 
senses, constate the phenomena they study. In psychi- 
cal sciences the observation is often indirect and medi- 
ate ^ owing to the fact that scientists know of the nature 
of the phenomena only through the testimony of un- 
scientific observers — persons not trained in science — 
who witnessed them by chance and described them, 
orally or in writing. 

This manner of observation hy testimony is not con- 
fined exclusively to psychical sciences ; it is found in all 
the moral and social sciences, in all sciences which have 
man for their object. It is the indispensable instru- 
ment of history, where these sciences find their principal 
support. As a result, psychical sciences partake at the 
same time of the nature of physical sciences and of that 
of moral sciences; and this, perhaps, as Prof. Bergson 
aptly showed in his masterly address of May 28, 1913,^ 
is one of the reasons why many savants — who con- 
ceive all sciences as in the light of natural sciences only 

^ Annales des sciences psychiques (November and December, 1913). 
Address delivered by Prof. Bergson at the time of his election to the 
presidency of the Society for Psychical Research, of London. 



44 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE FUTURE 

— refuse " to consider as real, certain facts that can be 
known only through a method of observation founded 
upon testimony, too similar to the historical method or 
to that of a magistrate gathering testimony." 

Yet in natural science there are a great number of 
facts that can be known by this method only: for in- 
stance, the rare and accidental facts in astronomy and 
pathology, such as the falling of meteorites, diseases 
peculiar to certain climates or observed in a small num- 
ber of individuals, etc. 

It is true that in such sciences we take into account 
only observations reported by witnesses who can be con- 
sidered as scientists; but we should singularly restrict 
the means of obtaining information for the psychical 
sciences were we to reject, even for the sake of inven- 
tory, all observation presented by non-professionals. 
Where, moreover, does the category of people accept- 
able for testimony begin and where does it end? 
Should we, for instance, reject wholly and without ex- 
amination all the accounts in which the early magneti- 
zers — de Puysegur, Deleuze, Lafontaine, du Potet, 
etc. — report the facts observed by them, under the 
pretext that none of them was a professional scientist 
and that the interpretation that they proposed does not 
seem to be in accordance with the ideas held in the 
sciences of to-day? Should we grant the quality of 
scientist to naturalists, to physicians, to physicists, to 
chemists, to physiologists — such as Antoine Laurent 
de Jussieu, Dr. Husson, Reichenbach, W. Gregory, 
Charles Richet, W. Crookes, Oliver Lodge, etc. — and 
consent to give credit to their testimony when they tell 
us of facts which they affirm that they themselves con- 



OBSERVATION, THE FIRST STEP 45 

stated and controlled? If we were to answer In the 
negative, how could we justify such Intransigence? 

The psychical sciences are perfectly In their right 
In seeking In Indirect observation the first elements of 
their study; providing, of course, that the Information 
thus gathered be submitted to the most severe criticism 
(as has been done, for Instance, by the Society for 
Psychical Research with telepathic facts). Then they 
should be completed and controlled as far as possible by 
direct observation, especially by provoked observation 
(frequently and wrongly confused with experimenta- 
tion). 

By provoked observation Is meant an observation In 
which the observer himself Intervenes actively In the 
production of the phenomenon, but only in order to 
establish It In the best possible conditions of certainty 
and accuracy, without any previous hypothesis as to the 
mechanism of Its production. An observation of this 
kind Is commonly called an experiment ; and It Is In this 
sense that It Is said that " to put a subject to sleep," 
" to make the table move," etc.. Is to " conduct an ex- 
periment." 

But this, we believe. Is a wrong use of the word. 

Real experimentation exists only In the verification of 
an hypothesis. The experiment, thus understood, must 
be prepared In such a way that It may be a question 
asked of Nature, forcing her to answer In the affirma- 
tive or the negative. 

The so-called experiments independent of all hy- 
potheses and previous analyses have, without doubt, a 
superiority over ordinary observation that permits 
them to repeat and multiply the facts; but, from the 



46 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE FUTURE 

point of view of their position and their role in the 
ensemble of the experimental method, it is impossible 
to see in them anything but a particular form of obser- 
vation.^ 

An example will better explain the difference and 
the rapports of these three forms of observation in 
psychical sciences: 

First: One of my friends wrote me that he had 
witnessed a fact which had impressed him. He saw 
a man, who called himself a mesmerist, suddenly attract 
another man, several inches away, by presenting his 
hands at the height of the latter's shoulder-blades. 
As I have the greatest confidence in the judgment and 
character of my friend, I consider this fact real, Inter- 
esting, and worthy of being related. When I study the 
magnetoidal phenomena I shall not hesitate to give it a 
place among the elements of the problems to be solved. 
This is what may be called indirect or mediate obser- 
vation. 

Second: But I would not stop there. Desiring to 
be able to confirm for myself the testimony of my 
friend, I went to the town where he lives, and there 
made arrangements to observe with my own eyes the 
phenomenon which he described. This enabled me to 
understand more exactly all the circumstances and even 
to note some which had escaped the first observer. 
This is a direct observation of the first degree^ m 

3 These are those groping experiments, those " trying to see " ex- 
periments, which Bacon called " hazards of the experiment {sortes 
experimenii)" and which he justified by saying it is necessary some- 
times " to lift every stone in Nature." They are especially useful in 
the still too-Iittle-advanced sciences where, as Claude Bernard says, 
the savant must " try to fish in troubled waters." 



OBSERVATION, THE FIRST STEP 47 

which I act personally but simply in the role of specta- 
tor. 

Third: I then placed myself in the conditions in 
which I had seen the mesmerist operate, in order to 
produce the phenomenon myself; or I engaged different 
people to place themselves in these conditions, and I 
verified each time the results obtained. This consti- 
tutes a direct observation of the second degree, which 
I have previously called a " provoked '' observation. 

It can be said that these three forms or degrees of 
observation attract and complete one another naturally, 
although, in certain cases, we may unfortunately be 
compelled to stop either at the first or at the second 
degree of the scale, without being able to pass from the 
first to the second, and from the second to the third. 

Ill 

Let us see now in what spirit and with what precau- 
tions the observation of psychical phenomena must be 
conducted in order to make possible a correct and 
efficacious application of the subsequent processes of the 
experimental method. 

In all sciences based upon facts, observation Is pro- 
posed, first and above all, to constate the facts in the 
best conditions of certainty and authenticity and to 
permit a description as exact and complete as possible. 
When It Is a question of facts so obscure, so capricious, 
as psychical facts (understood In their broadest sense) 
the first aim of observation Is very difficult to attain. 

On one hand, the observer Is constantly grappling 
with a first cause of error: illusion. This not only 
must be guarded against In the observation actually 



48 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE FUTURE 

before the experimenter, but it must be hunted out in 
the preceding observations, too often reported by testi- 
mony foreign to all scientific discipline but which it is 
impossible not to take into account. 

On the other hand, a second cause of error, no less 
formidable, and from which physical and natural 
sciences are generally exempt, is simulation — decep- 
tion, conscious or unconscious, which subjects frequently 
use toward their observers. 

To what extent do these two causes of error inter- 
vene in the different branches of psychical sciences, and 
by what means can their effects be prevented? 

That question is too complex for us to treat of it 
here. It is sufficient to know that these causes do exist ; 
and in order to give a reliable account, every observer 
must also play the part of critic. 

But in an experimental science, observation is not in 
itself its real end. Beyond the constatation and the 
description of the fact, it aims at another object: to 
gain a tentative interpretation of the fact, an anticipated 
idea, an hypothesis that will permit of the substitution, 
in place of the simple observation, of that other process, 
called experimentation, 

" All experimental initiative," says Claude Bernard, 
" is in the idea, for it is that which provokes the experi- 
ment. Reason or reasoning serves only to deduce the 
consequences of that idea and to submit them to experi- 
ment. An anticipated idea or an hypothesis is there- 
fore the point of departure necessary for all experi- 
mental reasoning. Without that it will not be possible 
to make any instructive investigation; one will accu- 
muluate only sterile observations. An experiment 



OBSERVATION, THE FIRST STEP 49 

without a preconceived idea is but an experiment made 
at random." 

Unfortunately — and it is Claude Bernard himself 
who makes the statement — there do not exist precise 
and certain rules that enable us to sort out from the 
observation of facts the directing idea that alone war- 
rants real experimentation. " The nature of the idea," 
said this great French savant, who practised, better 
than all others, the experimental method, " is wholly 
individual: it is a particular statement, a quid pro- 
prium, which constitutes the originality, the Invention, 
or the genius of each." 

This, perhaps, is a repetition of the words that are 
attributed to Buffon : " Genius resides in great pa- 
tience " ; and Newton's response to those who asked him 
how he had discovered universal gravitation: "By 
always thinking." 

He who, in observing phenomena, is being constantly 
dominated by the idea and desire to extract from them 
certain circumstances and relations which will enable 
him to divine their hidden mechanism — has he not a 
greater chance to behold, some day, the long-sought- 
for hypothesis, than the one who confines himself solely 
to producing the phenomena and then describing them 
as real facts? 

We cannot, therefore, too emphatically recommend 
to all students of psychical phenomena that interroga- 
tive attitude of mind which is not satisfied merely in 
the knowledge that a fact is real, but which intends to 
know how it is possible, and which imagines, supposes, 
that it is the effect of such cause or is the outcome of 
such law. 



50 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE FUTURE 

We well appreciate, however, the nature and role 
of the hypothesis thus understood. 

There is not here an hypothesis that is in any way 
theoretical, general, having for its aim the integration 
and the coordination of an ensemble of truths already 
acquired — such as, for example, in physics the hy- 
pothesis of ether as a vehicle for heat, light, and elec- 
tricity; in chemistry the atomic hypothesis; in astronomy 
the hypothesis of Laplace; in natural science the hy- 
potheses of Lamarck and Darwin, etc. It is an experi- 
mental hypothesis, special and precise, bearing upon 
the probable cause or the probable effect of such de- 
termined phenomenon as the savant may be observing, 
and suggested by that same observation. It has for 
its aim not the explanation of the results, but the direc- 
tion of future researches, destined consequently to be 
submitted immediately to the control of experimenta- 
tion, to be either verified or contradicted by it. 

From this point of view, it could be said that there 
are two kinds of hypotheses : 

( 1 ) The inert, idle, in the sense that, whatever sat- 
isfaction they may give by their simplicity, their co- 
herence, their reality, etc., they do not suggest action, 
they do not open the field for experimentation by which 
any research can be made in the attempt to discover 
other facts beyond those of which they pretend to fur- 
nish the explanation. 

(2) Those hypotheses which, on the contrary, are 
active, laborious, in the sense that they have to be 
realized immediately in effective experiments. Their 
purpose is less to explain the facts already known than 



OBSERVATION, THE FIRST STEP 51 

to discover new facts, and after those facts, still others, 
ad infinittim. 

One of the principal means of advancing psychical 
sciences will be to substitute more and more the experi- 
mental and active hypotheses for the theoretical and 
inert hypotheses with which these sciences are still en- 
cumbered. Among these latter, moreover, several 
seem to us to be susceptible of reflecting, in a certain 
measure, the form of the first — such, for example, as 
the hypothesis of animal magnetism, as we have en- 
deavored to show in Our Hidden Forces. On the other 
hand, we do not see how any such transformation 
would be possible in the case of hypotheses such as 
that of the astral plane proposed by theosophists to 
explain clairvoyance. Hypotheses of that kind seem 
to us to be Irremediably inert. 

There now remains the determination of the particu- 
lar conditions of experimentation and of induction In 
the psychical sciences. 



CHAPTER IV 

HOW TO EXPERIMENT 
• I 

All future progress in psychical research depends 
upon the measure in which it will be possible to apply to 
that research the four processes of the experimental 
method, especially that one from which the method 
derives its name and which alone characterizes it: 
experimentation. 

But, as has been Indicated in a preceding chapter, 
current language assembles under the one name, ex- 
perimentation (or experiment) ^ two operations which, 
while they resemble each other in their exterior appear- 
ances, are notably different if the place and the role 
of each In the ensemble of the experimental method be 
considered. 

They have this In common : that they necessitate the 
active intervention of the savant in the production of the 
phenomena which he wishes to observe; and they both 
combat observation proper, where the savant Is more 
or less the passive spectator of the phenomena which 
present themselves to him In the ordinary course of 
nature, without his making any effort to arouse or to 
modify them. 

But there is between the two operations this capital 
difference : that one aims merely to establish the fact to 

52 



HOW TO EXPERIMENT 53 

which it is applied and to permit as exact and complete 
a description of it as possible, while the purpose of the 
other is to verify a preconceived idea, an hypothesis 
relative to the mechanism of the production of the 
fact. 

The first has, then, absolutely the same object and 
the same role as observation; it is a provoked observa- 
tion. The second, on the contrary, differs from obser- 
vation in giving, not the fact itself, but the idea that 
enables one to comprehend it, while connecting it with 
the universal determinism of cause and effect, and in 
having as its role the transformation of that anticipated 
idea into a law, henceforth acquired to science. 

Really, the first of these two operations is inter- 
mediary between observation and experiment; it forms 
the passage from one to the other. It may, therefore, 
be called observation or it may be called experiment, 
according to the angle from which it is viewed. 

It is only the latter which gives to the experimental 
method its proper character and real importance, for 
it is this only which permits induction to be made with 
certainty, as Claude Bernard so deftly demonstrated in 
his Introduction a H etude experimentale de la medecine. 
Separated from it, all the other processes of the method 
constitute no more than an empiricism to which science 
might resign itself temporarily, for want of a better 
method. 

II 

Here are the first questions which arise regarding the 
subject of experimentation in the psychical sciences : 
Is it possible to provoke artificially y experimentally y 



54 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE FUTURE 

the diverse phenomena studied in these sciences? 
Does this possibility not exist for some of the phenom- 
ena and not for all? Can it he supposed that eventu- 
ally it will exist for all? 

In order to answer these questions, it is necessary for 
us to consider first the nature of psychical facts (or 
parapsychic) in general; then that of the different 
branches Into which they are divided — hypnoidal 
facts, magnetoidal facts, and spirltoidal facts. 

The parapsychic facts are all human facts, they are 
produced in human beings, and for this reason they 
oppose difficulties that are often insurmountable. Ex- 
periments cannot be made with human beings In the 
same way that they can with things or even with ani- 
mals. 

In the first place, experimentation may encounter 
obstacles of a moral nature. Is It permissible to subject 
an individual, even with his consent, to experiments 
which — as those of hypnotism, magnetism, or spirit- 
ism — are susceptible of temporarily upsetting the 
equilibrium of his physical forces and his Intellectual 
and moral faculties? 

This Is a cas de conscience regarding which scientists 
are far from being In accord. ^ 

Let us, however, suppose this first obstacle to be 
removed. We encounter a second In the often unfa- 
vorable attitude of the individual upon whom we wish to 
experiment. For Instance, a certain subject, who at 
first Is willing to be successfully experimented upon, re- 
sists the influence or refuses to submit himself to further 
experimentation, owing to some inexplicable caprice. 



HOW TO EXPERIMENT 55 

At other times his complaisant attitude is but a sham, 
its aim being to deceive through the production of a sim- 
ulated phenomenon. 

These, it may be said, are the inherent drawbacks 
to all studies bearing upon human facts. And they are 
especially pronounced in the parapsychic facts, because 
these facts are special, accidental, abnormal: that is to 
say, observable only in certain individuals of the human 
race, in certain comparatively rare and exceptional cir- 
cumstances. It follows that the same experiment, 
made in what seem to be the same conditions, succeeds 
with some individuals and does not succeed with others; 
it succeeds with one individual on a certain day and does 
not succeed with the same individual another day. 
And it is impossible for us — at the present time — to 
anticipate or to explain these disconcerting variations. 

Let us add that a characteristic common to all these 
individuals — subjects or mediums — is their extreme 
propensity to autosuggestion, or to the influence of 
either conscious or unconscious suggestion of others. 
This is a propensity in nature to alter, to a greater or 
less extent, the results of the experiment, by introduc* 
ing surreptitiously among the causes admitted by the 
experimenter a cause capable of neutralizing or of coun- 
teracting the effects. 

The case would be still more serious were we to 
admit, as some pretend, that a second characteristic 
common to all subjects and mediums is an ineradicable 
tendency to simulation, In all its forms: falsehood, 
fraud, mystification, etc. However true It may be that 
the experimenter must also be on his guard, no less 



56 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE FUTURE 

than the observer, against this possible cause of error, 
it seems, nevertheless, that simulation may not be so 
constant nor so general as has been pretended. 

These • — autosuggestion, conscious or unconscious 
suggestion by others, and simulation — independently 
of the complexity and the polyetism ^ of parapsychic 
phenomena (and common also to biological and socio- 
logical phenomena) are the principal difficulties which 
the experimenter encounters in all this order of re- 
search. He will conquer them, however, through the 
constant exertion of prudence, vigilance, and tenacity. 

Ill 

If we review the different branches of the psychical 
sciences, we shall find that each of them presents cer- 
tain difficulties more or less peculiar to itself; and that 
the difficulties in their ensemble increase in proportion 
to their rank in the hierarchy of the sciences, from 
hypnotism to animal magnetism, and from animal mag- 
netism to spiritism. 

The study of hypnoidal phenomena is certainly the 
one which best adapts itself to experiments of the first 
order (experiments to see) and in which, consequently, 
experiments of the second order (experiments to know) 
have a greater chance to be introduced with success. 
We have at our call a certain number of practical means 
to produce at will the different varieties of these phe- 
nomena — somnambulism, catalepsy, lethargy, etc. — 
and at the same time the means to discover, by suffi- 

^This word — coined, we believe, by Durand de Gros — means the 
particularity that certain phenomena present of being able to be pro- 
duced indifferently, by many different causes — at least those which 
science cannot in any way unify. 



HOW TO EXPERIMENT 57 

ciently precise and constant signs, the persons in whom 
susceptibility to these phenomena exists. 

What is the action of the agents and processes used 
by the experimenter in provoking the hypnotic state? 
He himself ignores the question ; it is one of those which 
his later investigations will have to solve. For the mo- 
ment, it is sufficient for him to know that these agents 
are effective, and to have the necessary technical ability 
to use them advantageously. Here, as In many other 
fields of science, our power, whatever Bacon may have 
said, exceeds our knowledge. 

Let us therefore confine ourselves. In the present state 
of the psychical sciences, to the fact that suggestion, the 
gaze, the passes, the fixation of a brilliant point, etc., 
produce hypnosis; and that, similarly, suggestion, the 
breath, the passes, etc., arrest it. We must use these 
different means — perhaps separate, perhaps united — 
in our experiments, just as the physicist and the chemist 
use light, heat, electricity, the catalytic force, etc., 
without necessarily knowing the nature of the diverse 
agents or how they produce their effects. 

Of the different processes which we have enumerated 
— suggestion, the gaze, passes, etc. — it Is the first 
which, the School of Nancy pretends, forms In reality 
the basis of all the others, and It Is to this alone that 
they owe their whole efficiency. Consequently, the 
experimenters whose doctrines are Inspired by this 
School have a tendency to reduce all their technical 
operations practically to suggestion alone. 

But, as we shall show later In detail, even though 
the question may be extremely Interesting and Important 
from the theoretical point of view, we must not over- 



58 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE FUTURE 

look the fact that it is not solved at all. It would 
be necessary, for its solution, to conduct a long series of 
experiments of the second order, patiently and method- 
ically carried out and tabulated; and this, so far as 
we know, has never been done. On the other hand, 
from the practical point of view, it is not necessary that 
it be solved if we are sure that the processes other than 
suggestion (no matter what these others may be in 
reality or in appearance) produce identical, or equiva- 
lent, effects — so long as our object is to provoke hyp- 
notic states. 

From this point of view, it can be said that each 
experimenter has his own habits and his preferences, 
which respond, undoubtedly, to his particular aptitudes, 
natural or acquired; and it would be wrong to try to 
impose them upon other experimenters in virtue of 
some such reasoning as this : " I employ in my experi- 
ments only one process (for example, suggestion), and 
it always succeeds. Therefore, no other process exists, 
and this is the only one which can succeed." 

Yet the great majority of those who employed these 
different processes rarely had a scientific aim. Many 
sought, rather, a therapeutic result. They endeavored 
to exploit provoked sleep, or the power of suggestion, 
in order to facilitate surgical operations, or to aid 
certain treatments for the cure of nervous affections 
and other maladies. Or often, also, they wished to 
entertain or strike the imagination of the participants 
in their spectacular experiments. They have accumu- 
lated a great quantity of facts of which indirect obser- 
vation can and should make the fullest use. But per- 
haps it is not exaggerating to say that the real experi- 



HOW TO EXPERIMENT 59 

mental study of hypnoldal phenomena yet remains to 
be made. 

However, we except a certain category of hypnoidal 
phenomena — that which may be designated by the 
name of cryptopsychism, and which Dr. Pierre Janet 
has exhaustively studied under the name of dissociation 
of the personality. Here we find ourselves in the 
presence of a systematic investigation, carried as far as 
can be possible, by means of the processes and accord- 
ing to the spirit of the true experimental method. 

There exists a whole ensemble of special means for 
the provocation of cryptopsychic phenomena: subse- 
quent somnambulism, suggestion by distraction, auto- 
matic writing, and vision in the crystal. By these 
means it is possible to institute preordained experi- 
ments, as Dr. Pierre Janet has done, so as to solve such 
particular problems as are relative to parapsychic phe- 
nomena. 

IV 

The study of magnetoidal phenomena, also, lends it- 
self to experimentation, especially if the experimenter 
possess, in a sufficient degree, the force or special apti- 
tude necessary to produce them. 

Perhaps, It is quite true, subjects capable of present- 
ing these phenomena and of reacting under the influence 
of this force — subjects really magnetic — are more 
rare than hypnotizable or suggestionable subjects. On 
the other hand, phenomena of animal magnetism are 
much less easy to simulate than phenomena of sugges- 
tion. 

Unfortunately, in almost all experiments up to the 



6o THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE FUTURE 

present time, little effort has been made to dissociate 
these two orders of phenomena, which accompany each 
other almost inevitably, and are, moreover, capable of 
counterfeiting and substituting each other. Sugges- 
tion, in particular, tends to slip surreptitiously into 
all the parapsychic phenomena. This is why it is nec- 
essary to have a special technique which shall rigorously 
exclude suggestion from all experiments having for 
their real object the study of the magnetic force and 
its diverse manifestations. 

In Our Hidden Forces we indicated the essential 
principles of that technique. They can be summarized 
by saying that they consist in the complete isolation of 
the subject upon whom the experiment is being made: 

First, by removing all possibility of his seeing what 
happens about him. 

Second, by observing, and having others observe, 
before, during, and after the experiment, an absolute 
silence. 

Third, by acting only at a distance, without con- 
tact, through the supposed radiation of some organ of 
the operator, principally the hand. 

And if vital-radiation does exist, nothing can prove 
that human beings alone are sensible to it. It Is possi- 
ble that it acts also — In an objective, therefore observ- 
able, manner — upon animals, upon plants, and upon 
certain material objects. Thus there arises the possi- 
bility of a new series of experiments, either to estab- 
lish the reality of this force, or to determine its effects 
and conditions. 

What a vast field this study of magnetoldal phe- 
nomena offers to the experimenter ! 




AUTOMATIC WRITING 



The subject shown here is in the waking state, writing under the 
influence of the magnetic radiation from the operator's hand. 



HOW TO EXPERIMENT 61 

There Is, however, in this field of research, a part to 
which access seems almost entirely closed. It is that 
of telepsychism, or at least of its most characteristic 
forms : clairvoyance, mental suggestion, and telepathy. 

What position can the experimenter take in regard 
to clairvoyance? Once having provoked it by his sug- 
gestions, his role becomes nothing more than that of 
an observer. As yet we cannot see how he could in- 
tervene in the phenomenon so as to take its mechanism 
apart and place it together again. 

In the same way it would appear that, as mental 
sugge'stion usually works between the subconsciousness 
of the operator and the subconsciousness of the sub- 
ject, the will of the experimenter, in making an effort 
to provoke the phenomenon, thereby hinders its produc- 
tion. The old saying: " Seek it, it runs away from 
you; run from it, it will seek you ! " may be applied to 
this case. If this is actually its nature, as those who 
suspect its latent presence in almost all the parapsychic 
phenomena affirm, then mental suggestion (thus im- 
properly named) not only refuses to lend itself to ex- 
perimentation, but introduces an element of uncertainty 
in all parapsychic experimentation in general. It still 
remains to be known, it is true, if this conception of 
mental suggestion entirely conforms to reality. 

As to the facts of telepathy, we are compelled to 
register them as they occur. There does not seem to 
exist, as yet, in spite of numerous attempts made, posi- 
tive and reliable means which experimenters can use 
for the provocation of telepathy at will. 

It Is easy to understand, however, that experimenta- 
tion has a marked place in hyloscopy; for It Is a ques- 



62 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE FUTURE 

tion there of studying the effects produced by material 
agents upon the nervous system of subjects apt to re- 
veal them because of their exceptionally fine sensibility. 

V 

The spiritoidal phenomena, In spite of their con- 
trary appearances, do not lend themselves well to ex- 
perimentation. They are, above all, spontaneous phe- 
nomena — which, it is true, we can try to provoke at 
will in certain conditions: for example, in assembling 
a number of persons about a table upon which they put 
their hands in a state of expectation. But they are 
merely waiting for the phenomenon, without knowing 
if it will be produced or how it will be produced. Is 
this really the way to experiment? Is it not rather to 
observe, or simply to seek to observe? This is the 
staging of almost all the pretended experiments in 
spiritism. 

It is precisely this spontaneity of the spiritoidal phe- 
nomena — spontaneite irreductihle — which causes 
spiritists to attribute them to the action of intelligent 
entities, of invisible operators residing in the world of 
the Beyond. If this hypothesis be admitted, is it not 
evident that the role of experimenter belongs effectively 
to these entities, in which case our role must be con- 
fined to that of simple observer? 

Perhaps this situation is only temporary. It may 
be that future discoveries will reverse these roles. In 
the present state of our knowledge, however, it must 
be admitted that our experimental capacity in the mat- 
ter of spiritism is singularly limited. In the case of 
" haunting " phenomena it is reduced to zero. In 



HOW TO EXPERIMENT 63 

mediumlstic phenomena it is limited to placing the 
mediums in the conditions supposed to be the most fa- 
vorable for the manifestation of their powers, noting 
and observing the phenomena, more especially when 
they are of an intellectual order. Experimentation 
can then be of positive value when considering phe- 
nomena of a physical order, especially if, as is probable, 
these phenomena obey the great law of psychic conduct- 
ibility. 

To summarize : It is possible to experiment in the 
fields of hypnotism, cryptopsychism, animal magnetism, 
and hyloscopy. Experimentation is impossible, or 
extremely difficult, in the domains of metagnomy, men- 
tal suggestion, telepathy, and spiritism, where indirect 
observation plays too great a part. 

And we shall remain In this position until some prac- 
tical means of producing these phenomena at will shall 
be discovered. 



CHAPTER V 

THE ROLE OF THE HYPOTHESIS 
I 

The hypothesis, as Claude Bernard has definitely 
estabHshed, is the great pivot of the experimental 
method. All real experimentation is brought into be- 
ing and directed by an hypothesis, the aim of which is 
to verify it. In natural science, however, the hypothe- 
sis is legitimate only when its purpose is primarily to 
arouse and direct experimentation. 

This is the modern conception of the experimental 
method, so essentially different from that which Bacon 
and even Stuart Mill had previously elaborated. 

We have shown, in the preceding chapter, that the 
application of this method is not possible — at least 
at the present time — in all branches of the psychical 
sciences, inasmuch as a general condition of it is the 
possibility for the savant to intervene actively in the 
production of the phenomena which he studies — either 
in order to create them, or to modify them, from the 
point of view of quantity as well as from that of qual- 
ity. Now, this condition is not actually fulfilled in 
many branches of psychical research, where the savant 
is reduced to mere observation, and often, indeed, to 
indirect observation. 

Where this condition does exist, however, let us 
examine the connections between the four processed of 

64 



THE ROLE OF THE HYPOTHESIS 65 

the experimental method in the psychical sciences. 
And especially let us note the place and the role which 
should be assigned to the hypothesis. 

II 

To illustrate our point, we shall give an example 
which we already have used : 

We have seen a man place his hands, for several 
moments, against the shoulder-blades of another per- 
son, then withdraw them slowly; and this latter has 
appeared to be attracted backward more or less vio- 
lently. 

This is an observation. We have repeated it many 
times ; we have tried to apperceive the different partic- 
ularities as exactly and completely as possible; and we 
have given a full and faithful description of it. We 
might easily multiply ad infinitum observations of this 
kind ; but in so doing we could not go beyond the limits 
of pure empiricism. 

Wishing to ascertain if we too can produce this phe- 
nomenon, we apply our hands to the shoulder-blades of 
another, and establish the fact that it determines a sort 
of attraction. 

Strictly speaking, this might be called an experiment; 
but this experiment has, in reality, the same signification 
and the same value as an observation ; it is what we may 
call a provoked observation. Nevertheless, it has a 
very great importance. For it is this which makes 
possible the application of the experimental method to 
the study of this phenomenon; it is this which leads the 
way to true experimentation. 

What must we do, in order to pass from this first 



66 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE FUTURE 

stage — the stage of observation — to the second, and 
enter effectively the domain of the experimental 
method? 

First of all, it is necessary that a question be formed 
in our mind, and then that we imagine an answer to 
that question. 

That one person attracts, or appears to attract, an- 
other by the imposition of the hands upon the shoulder- 
blades is a fact that we have proved, or, better, that we 
ourselves have provoked. But if this fact is not 
changed by us into a problem, it remains sterile, use- 
less, from the point of view of scientific and experi- 
mental research. 

How is this attraction possible? On what condi- 
tions does it depend? By what mechanism is it pro- 
duced? 

This problem, in its turn, must suggest to us a pos- 
sible solution; and it is this possible solution which is 
really the experimental hypothesis. 

For example, we can suppose that the attraction, real 
or apparent, is caused ( i ) by the fatigue of the indi- 
vidual, resulting from the more or less prolonged 
standing — that he unconsciously leans against the 
hands of the operator ; or ( 2 ) by the loss of equilibrium 
which the withdrawing of the hands determines; or 
(3) by ^h^ involuntary suggestion which results from 
the conditions of the experiment; or (4) by an elec- 
tive action, of a nature yet unknown, but really radiant, 
which the hands have the property of projecting. 

If we hesitate to compare these hypotheses among 
themselves, to enumerate them, to weigh the reality 



THE ROLE OF THE HYPOTHESIS 67 

and the unreality of each of them, or even if, in choos- 
ing one to the exclusion of all the others, we endeavor, 
by reasoning only, constructing and complicating it by 
additional hypotheses, to demonstrate that this is the 
sole possible solution to the problem, we shall only 
turn our back upon the real experimental method, and 
we shall not arrive at any positive result. 

How, then, shall we proceed? 

First of all, it is evident that, among the diverse 
solutions or hypotheses possible, we must choose one, 
at least tentatively. This once chosen, we must de- 
termine by deductive reasoning, the consequences which 
we may be able then to submit to the control of the 
experiment. This phase — of capital importance — 
is what Claude Bernard called experimental reasoning. 
It is at this moment that the mind decides upon the 
plan of future experiments: (i) If the phenomenon 
depends upon certain supposed conditions, it cannot be 
produced if these conditions be suppressed. (2) The 
phenomenon can be produced if these specified condi- 
tions be realized, regardless of all other circumstances. 
(3) If the conditions be modified in a given way, the 
phenomenon will be found modified correspondingly. 

The savant can at the beginning write down on 
paper an outline of the combinations, and then try to 
reahze them, one by one. These, according to the 
extent of his success, will either confirm or refute the 
hypothesis being put to the test. 

There is here wholly an intellectual work, where 
the imagination plays as great a part as, and sometimes 
greater than, reasoning; as is the case also in mathe- 



68 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE FUTURE 

matics, where the solution of the problem is often a 
matter of imaginative ingenuity as much as, or more 
than, of deductive rigor. 

This ingenuity, this sagacity of the savant, is mani- 
fested in the choice, among a more or less large num- 
ber of hypotheses, of that one which will lead him 
most directly and surely to some important and de- 
cisive discovery. " It is," said Claude Bernard, " a 
particular sentiment, a quid proprium, which consti- 
tutes the originality, the invention, or the genius of 
each experimenter." 

Thus, in the example cited a moment ago, an ex- 
perienced researcher will not waste much time in con- 
sidering the hypotheses of fatigue or of the loss of 
equilibrium; he will devote his attention immediately 
to the hypothesis of suggestion or that of magnetoidal 
action, and all his effort will be bent upon deciding, 
by a series of appropriate experiments, which of these 
two accord, to the exclusion of the other, with all the 
particularities of the fact. 

Ill 

According to Claude Bernard, there are no rules 
that will enable us to create in the brain, apropos of an 
observation made, a just and fruitful idea which may 
be for the experimenter a sort of intuitive anticipation 
of the mind toward a successful research. When the 
idea is once gained, we can show how it is necessary to 
submit it to definite precepts and precise and logical 
rules. But its conception has been wholly spontaneous 
and its nature wholly individual. 

Although it is not possible to anticipate the details 



1 



THE ROLE OF THE HYPOTHESIS 69 

of the hypotheses that will cause the savant to observe 
a certain particular fact, it seems possible to us, at least 
in psychical research, to determine the order in which 
these hypotheses will range themselves; and conse- 
quently the foreknowledge of this order will itself serve 
to guide the researcher through the labyrinth of the 
phenomena. 

They constitute, in effect, the general hypotheses im- 
plicitly included in the particular hypotheses which up 
to this point have been the only ones regarded. They 
are, it might be said, the abstract and schematic for- 
mulae to which these latter can be reduced and which 
are found again in them, but clothed in concrete cir- 
cumstances which complicate and diversify them. 

We shall not consider here these general hypotheses 
in their rapport with the experimental method; but it 
is certain that they have been and are still considered 
by many from a wholly different point of view — as 
theories subsisting and having value of themselves, 
without necessary relation to the experimental method, 
as explanations permitting the rational coordination of 
a whole ensemble of phenomena which otherwise would 
remain an enigma incomprehensible to the human mind. 

Is it necessary to state once more that such a point 
of view, although admissible when it is a question of 
sciences relatively far advanced in experimental knowl- 
edge of the facts being studied, seems absolutely un- 
tenable in an order of researches as imperfect, as rudi- 
mentary, as that which has for its object the para- 
psychic phenomena ? 

Theories of this nature can find a place only at the 
point of arrival of investigations patiently and success- 



70 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE FUTURE 

fully conducted. In the parapsychic sciences we have 
scarcely left the point of departure. 

Let us guard, then, against theorizing, and not take 
these general hypotheses for more than they really are 
— simple tools to be employed in the field of experi- 
mentation, and utterly valueless if put to any other 



IV 

It will not be without interest to review these differ- 
ent hypotheses, as they are encountered at each step, 
immediately the domain of the psychical sciences is 
entered. It is comparatively easy to recognize each of 
them under the modifications brought about by the 
diversity of uses to which each is susceptible. 

Most often, these hypotheses consist in an extension 
to new facts of a general law or proposition of which 
the truth has already been recognized by other facts. 
It may be, for example, the hypotheses of illusion and 
simulation, which are frequently invoked by a number 
of savants in order to produce the most marvelous, the 
most improbable, phenomena. There are numerous 
and circumstantiated narrations of these in the litera- 
ture of mesmerists, occultists, and spiritists. That in a 
given case there may be illusion or simulation is not 
an hypothesis; it is a fact already proved. But that 
in other cases, in all cases, there may be nothing more 
than illusion or simulation — this cannot be affirmed 
without forming in itself an hypothesis ; and it is justly 
this hypothesis which it will be well to prove, not 
merely by the logic of reasoning, but, if possible, by 
experimental verification. 



THE ROLE OF THE HYPOTHESIS 71 

Similarly, suggestion, cryptopsychism, and even, al- 
though less surely, the transmission of thought (com- 
monly called mental suggestion) are not, when taken in 
themselves, hypotheses. They are facts, in the sense 
that it has been positively established, in definite cases, 
that suggestion, cryptopsychism, the transmission of 
thought, really exist. But they become hypotheses 
when one supposes their intervention in other cases 
where their existence is not at all manifest and where 
it can only be believed that It is possible. 

At other times, the hypothesis consists in the intro- 
duction of a new general law or proposition, of which 
the truth is entirely problematic, but which is more or 
less analogous to some general law or proposition of 
which the truth is incontestably known in another order 
of knowledge. Thus we know, in physics, that the 
magnet attracts iron ; but we have no proof in physiol- 
ogy that a human organism can similarly exert an at- 
tractive action upon another organism. If, then, in 
order to explain the process of Moutin, we suppose a 
magnetic action emanating from the operator and influ- 
encing the nervous system of the subject, we shall have 
an hypothesis bearing not only upon the existence of 
a law already known but upon the introduction of a 
law still unknown. 

In a similar way, we know that the human intelli- 
gence and the human will produce, through the medium 
of human organs, certain effects directly observable; 
but we have no proof that these same effects can be 
produced by other intelligences and other wills, with- 
out organs or through the medium of other organs. 
To suppose that this happens in certain cases is to in- 



72 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE FUTURE 

troduce a new law, and not simply to extend an old 
law to these new cases. 

There can, then, it seems, be distinguished in this 
order of researches two categories of hypotheses : 

(i) Inductive hypotheses. Those that lead hypo- 
thetically from certain facts to other facts which ap- 
pear to be of the same kind. 

(2) Analogical hypotheses. Those that consist in 
applying by analogy to a certain order of facts a law 
similar to that which governs another order of facts. 

Looked at from the point of view of strict logic, it is 
evident that the inductive hypotheses must be pre- 
ferred to the hypotheses by analogy. Recourse to the 
latter, a logician would readily say, is not permissible 
except when it is absolutely impossible to make the 
facts agree with the inductive hypotheses. And with- 
out doubt the experimenter would be wrong in dis- 
regarding the logician's indication. But from the 
point of view of the experimental method, which is 
necessarily his own, the fecundity of the hypotheses is 
a quality as valuable as their truth. The discovery of 
new facts and of new rapports is much more important 
in the experimenter's eyes than the explanation of the 
facts and the rapports already known. 

It would seem, therefore, that analogical hypotheses, 
which permit us to open new chapters in the book of 
Nature, are from this point of view — all things being 
equal — more favorable to the enlargement of science 
than inductive hypotheses, which permit us merely to 
add new paragraphs, new " items," to the chapters al- 
ready open. 



THE ROLE OF THE HYPOTHESIS 73 

V 

These hypotheses, however, appear to us to be 
purely logical, and to lend themselves badly to the reg- 
ular applications of the experimental method. In their 
relation to this method they are, it might be said, re- 
strictive and negative hypotheses : such, for example, as 
those hypotheses which ally all the parapsychic phe- 
nomena to illusion or simulation. 

Certainly the experimenter must always have iil 
mind the possibility of one or the other of these hypoth- 
eses; but they must be excluded after control, as it is 
only after this exclusion that he can effectively experi- 
ment under the direction of positive hypotheses. If he 
undertook his researches with the intention of reduc- 
ing systematically to illusion or to simulation all the 
facts which he will study, he would close to himself the 
road to experimentation. Would not such disposition 
of mind be equivalent, in effect, to declaring that, inas- 
much as the parapsychic phenomena are all illusory 
and simulated, these pretended phenomena do not 
really exist, and that consequently it is useless and even 
impossible to make them the object of scientific inves- 
tigation? 

This appears evident to us regarding the hypothesis 
of illusion. 

As to the hypothesis of simulation, it Is true that 
the experimenter could aim to see if it is not possible 
to simulate experimentally the different hypnoidal, 
magnetoidal and spiritoidal phenomena, reported by 
other observers or experimenters as authentic. Here, 



74 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE FUTURE 

certainly, is a whole series of attempts which it will 
well be worth the trouble to undertake, especially in 
order to be able to determine precisely which are, in 
the ensemble of these phenomena, those which can be 
simulated and those which cannot; and also in what 
conditions and to what extent this simulation is pos- 
sible, when it is present. It is certain, for example, 
that the greater part of the phenomena of hypnotism 
and of suggestion can be simulated with the utmost 
ease; although there exist, perhaps, means (of which 
it would be interesting to make a special study) to dis- 
tinguish the " paste " from the " diamond." But the 
conclusions which could be drawn from this work, even 
in supposing them favorable to the hypothesis, would 
advance the question but little; for the fact that a 
certain phenomenon can be simulated does not neces- 
sarily mean that it cannot equally exist also in an 
authentic form. 

Yet the partizans of the hypotheses of illusion and 
simulation refrain ordinarily from entering the experi- 
mental field, being content to reason in the abstract and 
a priori; they treat the problem not as experimenters 
but as dialectitians. Their argumentation consists first 
in showing, by the analysis of a certain number of cases 
reported by other observers, the presence of illusion or 
fraud; and then in inferring, without any further infor- 
mation, that all other cases of the same kind could be 
analyzed in the same way, that an identical result would 
be arrived at infallibly in all cases similar to the one 
under discussion. According to this stereotyped-reas- 
oning, the troublesome obligation to examine the enig- 
mas raised by the parapsychic phenomena is removed 



THE ROLE OF THE HYPOTHESIS 75 

once for all. This " simple previous question " is all 
that is required to bring these phenomena en bloc to the 
door of science. 

But those who employ this convenient artifice of pro- 
cedure must fully realize that it has nothing to do with 
the experimental method. 

VI 

It is necessary that we review the principal positive 
hypotheses to which the psychical sciences can and do 
have effective recourse, in order to apply to the diverse 
orders of phenomena the processes of the experimental 
method. 

These hypotheses, which are Indissolubly linked to 
experimentation, in place of being, as the preceding, 
mere matter for argumentation, require a certain pre- 
vious knowledge, both theoretical and practical, not 
only of the most general difficulties opposed to experi- 
mentation by the very nature of the phenomena, but 
also, and above all, a knowledge of the best means to 
overcome these difficulties. 

Before beginning the study of the positive hypoth- 
eses, we shall discuss this necessary preliminary knowl- 
edge of the difficulties and of the means of overcoming 
them. 



CHAPTER VI 

OUR LATENT PSYCHIC FACULTIES 
I 

The first, and not the least, of the difficulties pre- 
sented by the study of the parapsychic phenomena is 
that these phenomena are not produced in an ordinary 
way, but allow themselves to be perceived only rarely 
and in. exceptional and abnormal circumstances. The 
truth is that, in order to study them, it usually is neces- 
sary for us to provoke them ourselves, artificially. But 
here experimentation encounters a new difficulty. The 
same processes do not succeed with all subjects^ nor in 
all circumstances. 

The most disconcerting character of these phenom- 
ena is their irregularity. One may well endeavor to 
observe, each time, identical conditions; but sometimes 
the phenomena manifest themselves at the least effort, 
while at other times they obstinately remain invisible, 
to the extent that we almost doubt their possibility. 
We are here, it seems, in the domain of the unexpected 
and the indeterminate. 

If we consider, in particular, the simplest phenomena, 
those which are as the first links of the parapsychic 
series — the phenomena of hypnotism and suggestion 
— we establish the fact that, although they are more 
frequent and in some ways more accessible than the 

1^ 



OUR LATENT PSYCHIC FACULTIES 77 

others, they are themselves also subject to the most 
incoherent exceptions and inexplicable caprices.^ 

The School of Nancy claims, it is true, that all human 
beings are suggestionable and hypnotizable. But that 
assertion remains purely theoretical; practise shows us 
that the same maneuvers, applied to different individ- 
uals, with the aim of suggestioning or hypnotizing 
them, produce immediate and surprising results with 
some, while with others they fail miserably. 

Let us remember, however, that electrical phenomena 
presented the same appearance at the beginning. The 
laws which regulated them could be ascertained only 
when they could be produced experimentally: that is, 
when the savants could distinguish among natural 
bodies those which conserve and condense electricity, 
once produced, and those which conduct it and disperse 
it instantaneously. 

So, among human beings, it is an incontestable al- 
though still inexplicable fact that some are naturally 
apt to present the phenomena of hypnotism and sug- 
gestion immediately they are submitted to the influ- 
ence, while others are, or appear to be, incapable of 
this mode of reaction. 

How can we explain this difference in the effects of 
causes apparently identical? 

Undoubtedly, it is due to some profound difference 
in the physical and moral constitution of the human 
beings submitted to the experiment; but its nature is 

1 Charles Richet, in L'homme et Vintelligence, says: "All that is 
observed is inconstant, irregular, mobile. There is no fixed rule; the 
phenomena observed vary with each observer and with each subject. 
That which is announced is not produced, and that which is not an- 
nounced is produced." 



78 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE FUTURE 

absolutely unknown to us, and the words hysteria, nerv- 
ousness, weakness of temperament or of will, often 
heard in popular phraseology, serve only to mask our 
ignorance. Not until we shall know precisely in what 
this difference consists, until we shall know in an ac- 
curate and positive manner the necessary and sufficient 
conditions which determine the special sensibility of 
certain individuals and the apparent insensibility of 
others — not until then will the science of psychical 
phenomena be definitely established. It will then 
cease to be in great part empirical and become really 
experimental. 

But while waiting for this decisive evolution, it 
would be very useful to be able to distinguish at once, 
from among a certain number of individuals, those 
who are susceptible of presenting the parapsychic phe- 
nomena, at least in its elementary forms, and those who 
are not. Really, these phenomena exist in many more 
people than is ordinarily believed. But we do not 
know, or we know only imperfectly, how to discern 
that potentiality when it does exist; and it is this 
which hinders us from actualizing it at will. 

The first question, then, which arises when the ex- 
perimental study of the psychical sciences is begun, is 
this: 

How shall we discover, from among human beings, 
those zvho are capable of manifesting the parapsychic 
phenomena, — those who are '^ subjects ^^9 

In other words, the first point to be considered is the 
finding of the subjects themselves. 

There is no special term to designate the quality of 
the subjects: that is, the condition or the ensemble of 



OUR LATENT PSYCHIC FACULTIES 79 

conditions which makes them subjects. In spiritoidal 
phenomena, we have the word mediumistic, which cor- 
responds to the word medium; but usage does not per- 
mit us to employ the word subjectivity (used in philos- 
ophy with a wholly different meaning) to correspond to 
the word subject. As a special term seems to us abso- 
lutely indispensable, and as the most general charac- 
teristic that the subjects present is their more or less 
great obedience to suggestion, we shall employ, for 
want of a better term, the word suggestibility, to desig- 
nate in a general manner the aptitude to manifest the 
parapsychic phenomena — the most complex as well as 
the most elementary. 

Two objections can be made to the choice of this 
word : one of a simple form, another which goes much 
deeper. 

First of all, It can be observed, with Durand de 
Gros, that the word suggestible cannot be applied cor- 
rectly to persons. An act — flight, for example, or 
murder — can be suggested, and is therefore suggesti- 
ble; but when it is a question of a person, it must be 
said that he can be suggestioned or that he is sugges- 
tionable. The correct term, then, would be sugges- 
tionability. But this word seems too ponderous, too 
cumbersome; and, moreover, the question has less in- 
terest for us than for grammarians and lexicographers. 

The second and more serious objection is that any 
such denomination seems to belong to the three or 
four great theories which have been proposed by the 
interpretation the phenomena present in the subjects, 
and about which opinion is still divided among the 
savants engaged in this study. These theories are: 



8o THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE FUTURE 

suggestion, hypnotism, animal magnetism, and telep- 
athy or mental suggestion. 

We believe that each of these four interpretations 
has its share of reality. Each of them responds more 
particularly to a certain category of phenomena. 
There are subjects, perhaps the most numerous, in 
whom all happens in conformity with the theory of sug- 
gestion as professed by the School of Nancy. There 
are others who verify the assertions of the School of 
the Salpetriere, which has especially defended the the- 
ory of hypnotism. There are still others in whom are 
observed certain phenomena inexplicable by the hypoth- 
eses of these two Schools and which seem to justify 
those of the partizans of animal magnetism and telep- 
athy. 

From this, at least four types of subjects would be 
possible : 

1. The suggestible (or suggestionable). 

2. The hypnotic (or hypnotizable). 

3. The magnetic or mesmeric (magnetizable or 

mesmerizable). 

4. The telepathic subject. 

But in practise, let us hasten to say, it is very rare 
to find subjects who offer each of these types in a state 
of absolute purity: almost always a suggestible subject 
is also hynotizable, and vice versa; in an experiment 
where the operator believes he is employing nothing 
but suggestion or hypnotism, very often animal mag- 
netism or telepathy intervenes unconsciously. Unless 
special measures of extraordinary precision and deli- 
cacy be employed, it is almost impossible to determine 



OUR LATENT PSYCHIC FACULTIES 81 

in each particular case the exact part of each of these 
agents. 

In employing the word suggestibility to designate the 
quality of the subjects, we shall use the word in the 
most general sense; it will signify for us susceptibility 
to hypnotic, magnetic (mesmeric), or telepathic influ- 
ences, as well as to suggestive influences, except to dis- 
tinguish, in its place, the different specific modalities 
of that general susceptibility. 

II 

Are there any signs or processes, any reactives, 
which enable us to discover suggestibility thus under- 
stood : that is to say, the general aptitude to present the 
parapsychic phenomena? 

First, let us consider the easily observable physiog- 
nomic signs. 

( i) Subjects, it is sometimes said, are individuals of 
nervous or lymphatic temperament. In admitting that 
this may be true, it would be necessary to know by what 
indications these two temperaments may be recognized. 
The question thus is carried back a step, not solved. 
Then, if subjects are most often nervous or lymphatic, 
does it follow that all people who are nervous or lym- 
phatic may be subjects? 

(2) The magnetizer, Charles Lafontaine, claims to 
have discovered that all persons who have bulging eyes 
are subjects; but, lacking necessary proof to the con- 
trary, it is very difficult to know that this generaliza- 
tion is true. 

(3) The impression is received, in the presence of 



82 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE FUTURE 

many subjects, that there is a particular characteristic 
in the look in their eyes. But it is more easy to feel 
this peculiar characteristic, this something, than it is 
to define it ; it is, it might be said, a humid and cloudy 
eclat, a light shining behind a darkened glass. But 
how could we make practical use of an indication so 
vague ? 

(4) It is claimed that any one whose ear, deprived 
of the lobe, is directly fastened to the cheek, is infal- 
libly a subject. It does not appear, however, that an 
extended observation would verify this generaliza- 
tion. 

(5) There is a similar pretension regarding a cer- 
tain form of thumb : thick, short, and rounded. 

(6) It is often claimed that subjects have moist 
hands; or have the habit of biting their nails. But can 
it be concluded that all those who have the habit of 
biting their nails are subjects? 

*' Certain favorable conditions,'' says Charles Richet 
in Uhomme et Vintelligence, " can be determined with 
sufficient precision. Women are more sensitive than 
men. Regarding the age, I believe that children can 
be put to sleep; but I have never attempted the ex- 
periment with very young subjects, as I did not wish 
to create in them a nervous state that would not be 
without inconvenience. ... I have put to sleep young 
girls of seventeen to eighteen. But that age would not 
seem to be the most favorable. It appears that the 
best age would be from twenty-five to forty years. As 
to the very old, I believe that they are extremely re- 
bellious to magnetism. I have succeeded in putting 
to sleep a woman sixty years old; but in her the sleep 



OUR LATENT PSYCHIC FACULTIES 83 

has never been complete, and the symptoms have had 
little interest. Nervous temperaments are, as will 
easily be concluded, more susceptible than others. In 
general, small women, brunettes, with black eyes, black 
hair, heavy eyebrows, are the most favorable subjects. 
However, experiments have succeeded very well with 
pale and lymphatic women, and have failed with very 
nervous persons. In sleep, the delicate women, nerv- 
ous, languid, afflicted with a chronic malady or con- 
valescent, are certainly, more than all others, apt to 
react to the influence of magnetism.'* 

It can be seen that these indications, although given 
by one of the leading scientists in this field, are never- 
theless vague, and difficult to utilize in practise. Be- 
sides, it does not seem to us absolutely sure that women 
may be, as is affirmed, more sensitive than men. Ex- 
periments which have been made up to the present time 
have been, in the great majority, with women, and it is 
consequently very natural that those who made the 
experiments have considered women more sensitive 
than men. To obtain certainty in this matter, it would 
be necessary to have experiments and comparative sta- 
tistics infinitely more numerous and more precise than 
all those which have existed thus far. 

In view of the lack of easily observable signs, vari- 
ous kinds of apparatus have been devised to reveal sug- 
gestibility, as the thermometer reveals temperature. 

Dr. Ochorowicz has proposed his hypnoscope, a 
magnetic steel tube which is put on the finger like a 
ring. Any one who feels marked sensations of chill, 
of numbness, etc., is, it is said, suggestible and hypno- 
tizable. But Dr. Crocq, Jr., of Brussels, declares 



84 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE FUTURE 

that he has never observed any constant action with 
this apparatus, and that everything has always de- 
pended upon autosuggestion. 

The sensitivometer of Duiville, a curved magnetic 
steel bar which is placed rounti the wrtst, the negative 
pole being put beside the thumb, does not appear to 
give many very sure indications. 

Dr. Gaston Durville has conceived an ingenious em- 
ployment of a dynamometer to reveal, and at the same 
time measure, the suggestibility. Under the name of 
siiggestometer^ he describes an ordinary medical dyna- 
mometer, a simple ellipsoidal steel spring, provided on 
one side with a needle, on the other with a " scale of 
sensibility." This scale was established after numer- 
ous experiments (560), and permitted the classification 
of people into five categories, according as their sensibil- 
ity is neuropathic, very great, great, medium, or nil. 
The subject takes the apparatus in his strongest hand 
and squeezes it with his maximum effort. After a few 
moments of rest, the suggestion is given him, during 
almost a minute or two, that his arm becomes weak, 
numb; and he is then asked to squeeze the apparatus 
again. According as the muscular force sinks to zero, 
decreases three-fourths, one-half, one-quarter, or re- 
mains constant, he is placed in one of the five categories 
indicated. 

Unfortunately, the employment of this apparatus is 
not always practical, because it is hardly possible to 
have recourse to it without the subject's being aware of 
the proof to which he is to be submitted, and without 
his giving his consent. It would be necessary for us to 



OUR LATENT PSYCHIC FACULTIES 85 

have a method which would permit us to recognize 
subjects without their knowledge, 

III 

What we need, then, is a reactive which can be ap- 
plied easily, without the subject's knowledge, almost 
without attracting his attention, and which will reveal 
his latent susceptibility, positive or negative, with re- 
gard to psychical influences. 

We should be able thus to divide individuals into 
good and bad conductors of these influences, just as in 
physics material bodies have been divided into good 
and bad conductors of electricity. 

This reactive has been found to exist. It was dis- 
covered by Dr. Moutin (of Boulogne-sur-Seine), a 
well-known observer and experimenter of the highest 
order. Scientists, however, are not sufficiently famil- 
iar with it; and physicians, in particular, who should 
employ it constantly, are wholly ignorant of its exist- 
ence, or know it only vaguely and attach no importance 
to it. 

Here, briefly, is the process of Moutin : 

The experimenter stands behind the person in whom 
he wishes to determine the sensibility, and applies 
against his back, on a level with the shoulder-blades, 
the palms of his two hands, fully extended, the two 
thumbs meeting over one of the vertebrae of the spinal 
column. After a few seconds of application, the hands 
are slowly drawn backward. If the person follows the 
movement of the hands, to which his back seems to 
adhere, or which appear to attract it with an irresist- 



86 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE FUTURE 

ible force, he can be considered as " presenting the sign 
of Moutin," at least in the first degree. In a greater 
degree, he is drawn and forced backward, even when 
the hands do not touch the shoulder-blades and are 
separated by a distance of lo, 20, 30, or 40 centimeters. 
If this application of the hands be prolonged, a sensa- 
tion of intense heat, almost of burning, will be experi- 
enced by some individuals. Also, if instead of apply- 
ing the two hands, only the palm of the right hand 
be applied at the nape of the neck, the effect produced 
will be essentially the same. 

Dr. Moutin has related, in his thesis, Le diagnostic 
de la suggestihilite^ how he discovered his process : 

One day, in 1878, he was walking with a friend in 
the outskirts of the town of Orange. The two stopped 
at the edge of a field, and, in leaning over to watch 
an insect. Dr. Moutin unconsciously put his hand on 
the back of his friend's neck. Suddenly the friend ex- 
claimed : 

" Take your hand away ! You are burning my neck 
with your cigarette.'' 

Surprised, Dr. Moutin answered: " But I have no 
cigarette." 

And after showing his empty hand, he placed it once 
again on his friend's neck. 

" This," said he, *' is the position in which we were 
a moment ago." 

" It is strange," replied the friend, " but I still feel 
your hand burning me." 

Removing his hand, Dr. Moutin, with increasing sur- 
prise, saw his friend totter, as if he had lost his equi- 
librium, and almost fall backward. 





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OUR LATENT PSYCHIC FACULTIES 87 

Being already acquainted with hypnotism and ani- 
mal magnetism, he suspected the probable signification 
of this singular phenomenon, and asked the brother of 
his friend, the director of a large paper factory, to let 
him try some experiments upon a number of the work- 
ers. Two hundred subjects, men and women, were 
put at his disposal. Out of about fifty upon whom he 
experimented, thirty presented, in varying degrees, the 
same S3miptoms of attraction, of sensations more or 
less abnormal, etc., and were thus revealed to be sug- 
gestible or hypnotizable in different degrees. Dr. 
Moutin was able also to note the opposition, the 
strongly characterized duality, of the individual reac- 
tions provoked by his process, and the relation existing 
between a distinctly positive reaction and the real sus- 
ceptibility to suggestion or hypnotic influence. 

An objection to the current employment of this 
method might be that, when the person in whom the 
research is made knows in advance the object of the ex- 
perimenter, it is possible for him either to simulate or at 
least to exaggerate the action, or, on the contrary, to 
suppress it by voluntary resistance. And how can he 
be prevented from knowing the purpose of the opera- 
tion, when he sees that the observer stands behind him 
and places his hands upon his shoulder-blades? 

This objection loses its value when the process of 
Moutin, which should be called the neurocritic process, 
is applied by a physician. For he can always combine, 
without informing the patient, the application of this 
process with that of the classical and customary proc- 
esses of auscultation, percussion, palpation, etc. Not 
seeing in the neurocritic process anything more than a 



88 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE FUTURE 

phase of a general examination to which he is sub- 
mitted, and not having any reason to distinguish it 
especially from the others, the patient will react with 
entire spontaneity and good faith. 

A variation of this process, which I recently discov- 
ered, escapes this objection entirely. It may be ap- 
plied not only to patients by physicians, but, to some 
extent, to every one and by any one. It is this : 

Standing face to face with the person with whom you 
are conversing, place your right hand on his left shoul- 
der (or inversely), either as a gesture of friendly fa- 
miliarity or under the pretext of examining more closely 
some part of his features. Think, then, as strongly as 
possible that he will lean forward or backward. In 
the well-known experiment of the pendulum of Chev- 
reul, it suffices to " think " the movement of the pen- 
dulum in a certain direction; and so, in order to move 
the subject unconsciously in the direction thought, an 
infinitesimal push given to the body of an individual 
whose nervous system Is particularly sensitive becomes 
immediately intensified a hundredfold and determines 
in the subject an irresistible movement of attraction or 
of repulsion, as if he were a veritable living pendulum. 
This experiment will be still more convincing if the 
attraction or the repulsion continues to be produced 
even without contact, following the movements of the 
hands of the operator held some centimeters above the 
shoulder. 

Can it be concluded from this that there exist in 
human beings, from the particular point of view of par- 
apsychic susceptibility, two opposed types of tempera- 
ment: (i) the moutinien or pendular type, which is 



OUR LATENT PSYCHIC FACULTIES 89 

that of subjects suggestible and hynotizable in varying 
degrees; and (2) the non-moutinien or ri^id type, that 
of individuals more or less completely refractory to all 
hypnotic or suggestive influence ? 

IV 

The discovery of Dr. Moutin has been very little 
utilized, except by professional hypnotists and mesmer- 
ists, whom it served to show quickly in a mass of spec- 
tators the subjects susceptible of experimentation. 

But it has a much greater importance, if we con- 
sider the part that it may play in psychical research; 
not to mention other manifold applications that could 
be made of it, whether to ordinary psychology, to his- 
tory, pedagogy, to the diverse moral sciences, or to 
psycho-therapeutics and medicine in general. 

Viewed as an instrument of research, the process of 
Moutin opens to those who employ it methodically an 
unlimited field of experimentation, as it permits them 
to find an indefinite number of subjects in a manner ex- 
tremely simple and rapid. A few seconds of light 
pressure of the hand upon the back or upon the shoul- 
der suffices to reveal the parapsychic potentialities, pos- 
itive or negative, of any person whatsoever, thus pre- 
venting delay in the preliminary attempts at hypnotiza- 
tion, which are often unfruitful, and are fatiguing for 
the operator as well as for the subject. 

One of the most interesting problems that arises at 
the beginning of psychical research is this : 

In what proportion are individuals apt to present 
the parapsychic phenomena — at least under the most 
elementary forms, suggestion and hypnotism — en- 



90 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE FUTURE 

countered In the human race? And how is this apti- 
tude apportioned among them according to sex, age, 
temperament, state of health or illness, etc. ? 

It is, we believe, through the general and systematic 
employment of the process of Moutin, only, that the 
establishment of statistics bearing upon a great num- 
ber of individuals will give us an exact solution to the 
problem. 

Even, however, at the same time that this process 
constitutes for researchers a valuable instrument of 
study, it can and must itself be for them the object of 
a special study; for it opens up a whole series of prob- 
lems to which the experimental method appears to be 
directly applicable. 

What causes this singular phenomenon of the ap' 
parent attraction of one individual for another? 

If it is the sign of suggestibihty, in what measure is 
it also the effect? 

Is it exclusively a function of the individuality of the 
subject, or does it depend equally upon that of the 
operator? 

Is it capable of undergoing variations; and, If so, 
under the influence of what causes? 

Besides the indications which it gives of parapsychic 
susceptibility, does it produce in the nervous state or 
in the mental state of the individuals, modifications 
more or less profound, more or less durable, although 
perhaps latent, that it would be possible to bring Into 
evidence by the employment of appropriate means? 

It cannot be doubted that the solution of these dif- 
ferent problems would throw a bright light upon the 
question, even If controversed, of the nature and the 



OUR LATENT PSYCHIC FACULTIES 91 

rapports of suggestion, hypnotism, and animal mag- 
netism. 

On the other hand, it will be understood that knowl- 
edge of the different degrees of suggestibility presents 
considerable interest for ordinary psychology, history, 
and in general for all the moral sciences, if it be re- 
flected that, contrary to common opinion, suggestibility 
is not an exceptional attribute of some rare subjects, 
but exists in a very great number, perhaps even in the 
greater number, of human beings. 

Its importance is no less from the point of view of 
pedagogy. " Logical education," said Dr. Berillon, 
" would consist in utilizing the best part of the mental 
malleability — that is to say, of the suggestibility; 
and in order to obtain that result it would be well to 
exercise over the minds only such pressure as is strictly 
necessary. We should take into account the interest 
that educators would have in knowing of processes per- 
mitting them to appreciate precisely the mental malle- 
ability of each of their pupils. The result would be, 
certainly, the proportioning of the pressure upon the 
mind of the child in accordance with the extent of his 
resistance. What sterile efforts, what erroneous judg- 
ments, and also what inconsiderate chastisements would 
thus be averted ! " 

Similarly, from the social and juridical points of 
view, the question of criminal responsibility, and that 
of human testimony, change their aspects singularly 
according to the extent that one knows or ignores 
suggestibility in human beings. 

From the medical point of view, we have only to 
consider the enormous part played by suggestion and 



92 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE FUTURE 

autosuggestion in both the production and the curing of 
ills, to understand how much it means to the physician 
to have a practical method for diagnosing the suggesti- 
bility of patients. If there is an exaggeration to pre- 
tend, as the School of Nancy was inclined to do, that 
suggestion is the sole agent, or even the principal 
agent, of all therapeutic efficacy, it must no less be 
recognized, with Charcot, that in a great number of 
patients " the faith that cures " is the best of remedies. 
The question, then, that all physicians must raise each 
time they find themselves in the presence of a new 
patient is this: 

" Does he belong to the class of individuals capable 
of being cured or helped by psychical treatment; or is 
he, on the contrary, of those with whom medicine or 
diet is the only efficient remedy? " 

Knowledge of the process of Moutin will permit that 
question to be answered immediately. According as 
to whether the patient is, or is not, a moutinien, the 
diagnosis and the treatment of his affection must be 
undertaken in a wholly different fashion. 

For the same reason, therefore, that it is helpful or 
necessary to examine a patient to learn the state of his 
lungs, his heart, his liver, etc., by the classical processes 
of auscultation, percussion, etc., it would be equally 
helpful and necessary to examine him by the neurocritic 
process to learn the state of his nervous sensibility. 
And, as we have previously stated, the two examina- 
tions should be made at the same time. 

The process of Moutin must be viewed as a valuable 
acquisition to medical science. It deserves to have a 
place in semeiology beside the classical signs, the sign 



OUR LATENT PSYCHIC FACULTIES 93 

of Sheyne-Stockes, of Romberg, of Lasegue, of Kernig, 
etc., which have Immortalized the names of those who 
discovered them. 



CHAPTER VII 

HYPNOTISM, OR ARTIFICIAL HYPNOSIS 



The importance that Charcot and the School of the 
Salpetriere attributed to knowledge of the different 
hypnotic states is well known. The increasing pre- 
dominance of the adverse doctrines of the School of 
Nancy singularly weakened it in the opinion of the con- 
temporaneous medical world, it is true; but it may be 
asked whether this knowledge, duly proved and gen- 
eralized, does not remain, after all, one of the guiding 
principles to which all those who are endeavoring to 
place the study of parapsychic phenomena in the field 
of positive science must necessarily have recourse. 

Charcot seemed to be a partizan of the idea that 
hypnotism — or hypnosis, as it should be called — 
constitutes a particular state, sui generis, of the nervous 
system and of the entire human organism, provoked by 
certain agents or processes and defined by a certain 
number of characteristics more or less closely connected 
among themselves. This state differs from the state 
of wakefulness — called the normal state — and also 
from the state of sleep, although it partakes in certain 
respects of the characteristics of both. It is itself sus- 
ceptible of assuming different forms, which may be con- 
sidered as secondary hypnotic states, each having its 
special excitator and its special characteristics, but de- 

94 



HYPNOTISM 95 

pending evidently upon common conditions and sub- 
stituting one another with a certain facihty. 

The principal secondary forms are three in number : 
(i) catalepsy, (2) somnambulism, and (3) lethargy. 
They can present themselves spontaneously during cer- 
tain forms of illness, or under the influence of certain 
physical agents, or they can be made to appear artifi- 
cially. It is for hypnosis thus produced — artificial or 
experimental hypnosis — that usage seems especially 
to reserve the name hypnotism. 

Reduced to these terms, the theory of the School of 
the Salpetriere seems to be a simple exposition of the 
facts, and the objections which are ordinarily made do 
not weaken it. Charcot's mistake was to claim that 
provoked hypnosis manifests itself always under one of 
these three clearly defined forms: catalepsy, somnam- 
buhsm, or lethargy. It is palpably evident that it is 
often found also under intermediary forms, which do 
not enter completely into any of these three classical 
forms. 

A still graver mistake has been to believe that the 
determining conditions of the various hypnotic states 
and the invariable order of their succession proceeded 
from quasi-mathematical laws. Over this point the 
critic of the School of Nancy seems to us to have well 
estabHshed the error of the School of the Salpetriere. 
But it is no less true that hypnosis constitutes a special 
state, as distinct from the state of normal waking as 
that state is distinct from sleep ; and that catalepsy, som- 
nambulism, and lethargy, in whatever way they may be 
produced, present to us three distinct modalities of hyp- 
nosis, responding to three types sufficiently definite and 



96 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE FUTURE 

constant. For there is an essential difference between 
the rigid attitude of the cataleptic, the independent 
motions of the somnambulist, and the complete mus- 
cular inertia of the lethargic. 

It is true that from the philosophic, or scientific, 
point of view, it can be claimed that all things in nature 
are continued and mingle with one another, in such 
a way that all the separations, all the distinctions that 
we place between them are necessarily more or less 
relative, arbitrary, artificial. Who could say exactly 
where, in the solar spectrum, any one color — violet, 
blue, green, yellow, orange, red, indigo — ends, and 
where the following color begins ? 

Even the ancients knew this method of reasoning; 
they called it " bald-headed argument " or *' quantitive 
argument." For instance: Here is a thick head of 
hair ; one hair is pulled out, then another, then still an- 
other ; at that moment could it be said that the head has 
become bald? One grain of wheat certainly does not 
make a pile, nor two grains of wheat, nor three, nor 
four. How many grains are necessary to make a pile ? 

Similarly, when a man goes to sleep, it is impossible 
to indicate at what precise moment the sleep has re- 
placed the waking state ; between the two extreme states 
there can always be imagined an infinity of intermedi- 
ary states by which the passage is made from one of 
these extremes to the other. 

But all this specious reasoning — which perhaps 
could be qualified as sophism — does not abolish the 
fact that there are, in nature, decided differences and 
irreducible oppositions of which we must take account 
if we would see clearly in our minds, and more so still 



HYPNOTISM 97 

if we would adapt our practise to the real world with- 
out. 

This question apropos of hypnotism is, moreover, of 
a very general order, and is found, under other forms, 
in all or almost all branches of science. It is thus that 
physics recognizes three different states of matter : the 
solid state, the liquid state, and the gaseous state, 
each of which is characterized by a definite number of 
properties. To these three states scientific researchers ,. 
have added, perhaps, a fourth : Sir William Crookes \ j 
has, indeed, spoken of a fourth state of matter, which 
he has called the radiant state. And it can well be sup- 
posed that the list of possible states of matter contains 
even others. There is also, very assuredly, between 
the solid state and the liquid state, and between the 
liquid state and the gaseous state, a certain intermediary 
margin where they meet, are continued and mingled. 
However, it must be recognized that the distinction of 
the three states — solid, liquid, gaseous — is one of the 
indispensable bases of physics. And chemistry, biol- 
ogy, etc., would present considerations of an analogous 
nature. 

II 

So far we have considered only the knowledge of the 
state as in its rapport with hypnosis. Hypnosis, how- 
ever, is itself but a species of a more extensive genus 
— the genus of parapsychic phenomena. It will be 
well, then, to generalize this knowledge by applying it 
to all these phenomena. In other words, we must ad- 
mit that in the nervous system and the organism of 
human beings there exist a certain number of states 
more or less distinctly characterized, which, once 



98 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE FUTURE 

brought into being, render parapsychic phenomena of 
many sorts possible. It is these different states that 
should first be determined and studied if we would 
place the psychical sciences henceforward on a solid 
basis. 

We can indicate here only a few of these states. 

Can the phenomena observed during seances of 
spiritism be fully identified with the phenomena of hyp- 
notism? 

This is a very obscure problem, which is still far 
from being solved. Without affirming the identity of 
the two states, however, we can at least show the 
strong analogies between the trance of mediums and 
the hypnosis of subjects. Just as the different hypnotic 
phenomena do not appear in subjects until they have 
been put, by appropriate means, into a particular state, 
so, it would seem, the special faculties of mediums are 
not manifested until they also are put into a state that 
is certainly not their normal state — by normal is 
meant their customary state outside of spiritistic 
seances. In many of them this state is distinctly ap- 
parent, and resembles strongly the state of somnam- 
bulism. In others it is latent or, so to speak larve; but 
we know that this is sometimes true also of somnam- 
bulistic hypnosis. A subject may have all the appear- 
ances of being fully awake, in an entirely normal state; 
but if he be studied closely, it can be recognized that 
he is in reality in that condition which sometimes is 
called a " second state." 

Similarly, under the influence of very strong physical 
and mental excitations, there are produced in certain 
individuals singular states which well seem to belong to 



HYPNOTISM 99 

the category of those we are now considering. By 
movements and cries indefinitely repeated, the Ais- 
saouas manage, it is said, to put their nervous system 
in such a state of insensibility that they can support with 
impunity burns and wounds which, in ordinary condi- 
tions, would be mortal. And it is claimed that the 
fakirs of India owe to the employment of a system of 
ascetic means — fasting, respiratory exercises, etc. — 
the development of supernormal faculties evidently 
connected with a special state of their nerves and their 
organism. The history of the Camisards of Cevennes, 
of the Convulslonarles of the Cemetery of St. Medard, 
shows us also that religious exaltation can produce In 
crowds a state generating the most extraordinary and 
varied parapsychic phenomena. It would be Interest- 
ing, from this point of view, to investigate to what ex- 
tent the ecstasy, the prophetic inspiration, etc. — phe- 
nomena very frequent in the history of all religions — 
can be compared to the states previously enumerated. 

Certain morbid causes provoke the apparition of 
similar states. The visions of Mohammed are ex- 
plained, at least in part perhaps, by epilepsy, of which 
he often had attacks. It is known that in epilepsy, 
and perhaps also in some other nervous affections, the 
patients are subject to fits which can last for weeks 
and even months, and return periodically; and during 
these fits they talk and act with all the appearances of 
the normal state, but without any consciousness of their 
usual personality — as if another self had taken, in 
them, the place of the old. 

Dr. Azam, of Bordeaux, has described In detail the 
singular alternation of two distinct personalities in one 



loo THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE FUTURE 

of his patients, Fellda, famous In the annals of morbid 
psychology. It is impossible to understand this alter- 
nation unless we suppose that each of these two person- 
alities Is linked to a particular nervous and organic 
state which makes it appear or disappear according 
to its own vicissitudes. 

Dr. Pierre Janet reports the adventure of a young 
man who, without apparent consciousness, suddenly 
abandoned his family, having completely forgotten all 
his past. He walked from Paris to Melun, following 
many different trades, and finally recovered his normal 
state three months later In Auvergne, in the company 
of an old plate-mender, wholly incapable of remember- 
ing how he had got there, or anything that had hap- 
pened during the interval. 

These examples are sufficient to give an idea of the 
multiplicity and the diversity of the parapsychic states ; 
for it Is not our Intention here to give a complete list of 
them, nor even to attempt their classification. Our 
sole object is to show that such states do exist, and 
to make the reader understand how interesting and 
necessary it would be to submit them to systematic 
study. 

This study should begin with the hypnotic states, in- 
asmuch as they are unquestionably those which we can 
most easily produce and modify at will, and those 
which, consequently, lend themselves best to the appli- 
cation of the experimental method. 

Ill 

First of all, it is important to forestall a misunder- 
standing which may be due largely to the Imperfection 
of our technical vocabulary. 



HYPNOTISM 101 

As waking and sleeping are the two normal states 
which in the life of man succeed each other, so it is that 
these two states have become for us the means, or gage, 
by which we instinctively endeavor to describe other 
states. Thus, instead of considering all those states 
which are different from ordinary waking and sleeping, 
as constituting a third state, susceptible of assuming 
several and various forms, we connect them with sleep 
in giving them the terms hypnosis, hypnotism, somnam- 
bulism, etc., which imply the idea of sleep because of 
their Greek and Latin roots. 

Of a man in the hypnotic state it is commonly said 
that " he is asleep "; and that " he wakes " when he 
comes out of the hypnotic state. To *' hypnotize " 
some one, and to " put him to sleep, '* are two expres- 
sions which are used indifferently, one for the other. 
For this reason there is a general tendency to regard 
hypnosis as a kind of sleep, and therefore to attach 
undue importance to the characteristics in which it 
resembles sleep. 

For this same reason, and especially among the par- 
tlzans of the School of Nancy — by whom suggestion, 
or rather suggestibility, is considered a natural, funda- 
mental, permanent property of all human beings, the 
key to all hypnotic, and undoubtedly also parapsychic, 
phenomena — there Is a tendency to disregard all sig- 
nification and all value of the hypnoldal characteristics 
of hypnosis, these being considered but the accidental 
effects of suggestion. For those who have this point 
of view, hypnotic sleep is In reality nothing but natural 
sleep provoked by suggestion: if the operator had not 
this preconceived idea that his subject must sleep, and 



102 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE FUTURE 

had not imposed it upon him, or caused him to incul- 
cate the idea in himself, all the phenomena called hyp- 
notic could be just as well produced in the waking state. 

Many unnecessary words and controversies would 
be avoided if it could be realized that the hypnotic state 
is neither a waking state nor a sleeping state, but a 
third state and of multiform expressions. This third 
state blends in various proportions the characteristics 
of sleep and of waking, adding other characteristics 
which belong exclusively to it, the principal of these 
being an abnormal suggestibility, certainly very differ- 
ent, whatever the School of Nancy may say, from the 
normal suggestibility common to all human beings. 

Thus, in conclusion, the different states through 
which the nervous system passes may constitute a sort 
of spectrum, of which the two end colors are the wak- 
ing and sleeping states, corresponding to the red and 
the violet of the solar spectrum; and our mental life is 
colored alternately by one or the other of these two 
extremities. But there exists in the interval, and per- 
haps also beyond the extremities of this spectrum, a 
multitude of other colors, of other shades, with which 
our life is sometimes tinted in an accidental and more 
or less transitory way, under the action of causes still 
undetermined. The hypnotic and magnetic processes 
disengage and firmly establish certain of these colors, 
normally latent or fugitive, and permit us to study them 
experimentally. 

We already have indicated the three hypnotic states 
generally admitted: catalepsy, somnambulism, and 
lethargy; but there exists also a fourth. It is that 



HYPNOTISM 103 

which certain scientific writers have called the state of 
fascination or the state of credulity. 

The subject in this state presents all the appearances 
of being awake. His eyes are open ; he has complete 
liberty of his movements; if his arm is raised it falls 
again of its own accord; and his sensibility usually re- 
mains normal. But he does not use his mental facul- 
ties in a normal way. He is incapable of evoking 
voluntarily any recollection : ask him his name, his ad- 
dress, what he did the previous day, he cannot answer. 
And he becomes extremely suggestible : he does not con- 
trol either his sensations or his acts, but believes or 
does blindly all that he is commanded to believe or to 
do. Often, but not always, once brought out of this 
state, he retains no memory of it. 

We believe, however, that beyond these four states 
there exists a state still more superficial, so slight, so 
little characterized, that we have long doubted Its real- 
ity. It might be called the state of torpor or the 
state of passivity. 

The subjects who exhibit this state are incapable of 
being led farther. When submitted to the hypnotic 
processes of the fixation of the gaze, passes, verbal sug- 
gestion, they appear not to feel any effect whatsoever. 
Their eyes remain open Indefinitely; they can move 
their limbs at will. Sensations or acts may be sug- 
gested to them; but they appear to feel none of the 
sensations, and they do none of the acts. Yet they are 
not In their normal state. In the first place, their 
thought is arrested, so to speak. If they are asked of 
what they are thinking, they invariably answer: 



104 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE FUTURE 

" Nothing." And this state of mental farniente is, 
they claim, most agreeable. Close their eyelids, and 
they remain closed, as if they had lost all power to open 
them. Their limbs obey the slightest impulsion Im- 
parted to them, and remain motionless In the most un- 
comfortable or the most ridiculous of attitudes, with- 
out the subject's seeming to have any Idea of changing 
them. For hours at a time, the subjects lend them- 
selves to all the manipulations that It pleases the opera- 
tor to devise; and they apparently resent nothing. 

This state of torpor Is dissipated with extreme rapid- 
ity, leaving behind it quite faithful recollections. Be- 
cause of Its wholly negative character, however. It Is 
not strange that It has remained unperceived by the 
majority of observers. 

IV 

One can realize the extent and the complexity of the 
field of study offered to scientists by the parapsychic 
phenomena. After having enumerated and defined 
the principal species, each of them should be analyzed 
according to three successive periods : 

1. Its preparation. 

2. Its constitution. 

3. Its completion. 

The preparation or Incubation of a psychical state 
can be extremely rapid, it can appear to be even in- 
stantaneous, and It also can last a long time. As an 
effect of repetition or habit, this Initial period tends 
always to shorten itself. In many cases It might be 
said that, in order to produce the state, a certain quan- 
tum of energy of a special nature may be necessary. 



HYPNOTISM 105 

just as zero (Centigrade) or one hundred degrees of 
heat are necessary to freeze water or to make it boil. 
When this quantum is attained, and only then, the state 
is wholly constituted. 

It is only after a certain number of passes that the 
subject enters into the somnambulistic state. The in- 
sensibility of the Aissaoua does not reach its climax un- 
til he excites himself a sufficiently long time and with 
sufficient intensity. Usually, at the moment when the 
state begins to appear, the observer is informed by 
some apparent sign — the eyes of the subject entering 
into hypnosis close, his chest heaves, he sighs deeply, 
etc. But sometimes the state is produced insensibly, 
and already exists without anything having occurred 
to make its presence suspected. The operator, be- 
lieving that he has not yet produced any result, pro- 
longs the fixation of gaze, increases the passes, until 
some accidental circumstance shows him that the sub- 
ject has already been for some time in the hypnotic 
state. 

In what does it consist, this constitution of the para- 
psychic state — sometimes slow, sometimes instantane- 
ous and unexpected? 

That is an extremely difficult problem to solve. 
When the state is once existent, we can easily estab- 
lish and describe Its exterior manifestations (although 
many of them escape us if we do not know or do not 
possess the proper reactlves to arouse them) ; but we 
do not penetrate its Intimate nature. 

When a subject is somnambulistic, for example, that 
which is of the greatest Importance is not the different 
phenomena by which this state is revealed — the clos- 



io6 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE FUTURE 

ing of the eyelids, insensibility of the teguments, extreme 
suggestibility, etc. It is something we do not see, 
something we cannot see: the particular state of the 
brain and of the nerves, from the point of view of the 
distribution and the tension of the nerve force, of the 
chemical and vital activity, of the circulation of the 
blood, etc. It is all these internal and unknown fac- 
tors which constitute, properly speaking, the parapsy- 
chic state, which are the effective substratum; and not 
a certain more or less impressive external phenomenon, 
such as suggestion, that " choice-bit " of the School of 
Nancy, which imagines that all questions can be an- 
swered by this abstract word, just as the scholastics 
imagined that all things could be explained by their 
entities and their occult powers. 

As long as this substratum subsists without notable 
change, the state continues; immediately that the sub- 
stratum ceases to be, or is modified in its essential ele- 
ments, the state vanishes, is resolved into a different 
state. 

How many patient and minute researches still re- 
main to be undertaken in the psychical sciences in order 
to elucidate these problems ! 



CHAPTER VIII 

SUGGESTION: AS A FACT AND AS AN HYPOTHESIS 

I 

The work of the School of Nancy has definitely put 
beyond all doubt the important role that suggestion 
plays in the greater part of the parapsychic phenomena. 

That suggestion is a fact, is a point already acquired 
to science; but we have yet to understand, in an abso- 
lutely definite and precise way, the nature and the con- 
ditions of this fact. We have yet to determine, with 
sufficient rigor, the cases in which suggestion intervenes, 
without any possible doubt as to its effective presence, 
and the cases in which this presence is simply supposed 
as the more or less true explanation or interpretation. 
In other words, we must determine when suggestion is 
really a fact, immediately proved by its very consta- 
tation, and when it is simply an hypothesis, of which 
the proof remains to be made. 

n 

It is important, first of all, to specify precisely what 
must be understood by suggestion, in the particular 
order of researches which we are now considering; for 
the term can be understood in many ways. 

As we have shown in Our Hidden Forces, there is 
suggestion each time that one individual evokes — 
usually by word ■ — in the mind of another individual, an 

107 



io8 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE FUTURE 

idea that would not have occurred to him in the natural 
course of his thoughts, an idea capable of influencing 
his sentiments or his conduct. 

But in this sense one cannot by any means foresee 
the final effect of the idea thus evoked. It may be 
that it will determine sentiments and actions conform- 
ing to it. It may be, also, that it will be deflected, 
either immediately or after examination, by the person 
to whom it is suggested. But in either of these cases 
the word does not imply necessarily the idea of an 
irresistible influence. 

On the contrary, the word suggestion implies an in- 
voluntary or automatic obedience of the person to the 
idea which has been suggested to him; and the re- 
markable part of the phenomenon is precisely this im- 
possibility when the person is found not to do or not to 
believe what is said to him. 

From this comes the name subject, generally given to 
the individual thus suggestioned, to indicate the state 
of subjection in which he is actually placed toward 
the one who gives him a suggestion of this nature. 
Also, we have the name hypotaxy (literally: subordina- 
tion, submission) given by Durand de Gros to the sup- 
posed state of the nervous system which permits of 
this forced obedience of the subject to the suggestion. 

There would be suggestion in this sense if I were to 
say to a person, for instance : " In five minutes your 
legs will not be able to support you; you will fall to 
your knees," and he would fall, in spite of his incredu- 
lity and his resistance. Or, " That chair attracts you; 
you will be forced to go to it and sit down," and he 
would go. Or, " You have forgotten your name, your 



SUGGESTION 109 

profession, your address," and he could not remember 
them. Or, " You are very warm, very cold; you are 
about to laugh, to cry, to run," and he experienced all 
these sensations. Or, ^' You are going to sleep — to 
sleep ! " and he fell asleep. 

However singular these phenomena may appear to 
those who have never witnessed them, it is not possible 
to doubt their reality. Of course, in some particular 
cases, it can evidently be asked if the individual is really 
suggestioned or if he is not simulating suggestion; but 
this would be to advance skepticism so far as to pre- 
tend, with a certain contemporary neurologist, that one 
cannot be sure that there was ever any case of authentic 
suggestion. 

In order to distinguish suggestion thus comprised 
from ordinary suggestion, it is often called hypnotic 
suggestion. 

Ordinary suggestion — that which the individual 
can normally resist, or else which he obeys because of 
a more or less deliberate consent or as an effect of his 
credulity and his natural docility — is produced in the 
waking state, while he is fully conscious and has com- 
plete use of all his faculties. 

Hypnotic suggestion, on the contrary, — that which 
the subject cannot resist, even if he should have the 
desire to do so, and which he obeys outsid^e of all delib- 
erate consent, as the effect of a credulity and a docility 
in some way artificial and abnormal — is produced dur- 
ing hypnosis, or during an apparent waking state more 
or less fundamentally analogous to hypnosis. 

From this point of view, the characteristic of the 
second kind of suggestion would be its liaison with a 



no THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE FUTURE 

state or disposition sui generis of the nervous system, 
a hypnotic state or disposition. In other words, sug- 
gestion thus comprised would be a function of hypno- 
tism, which could then be defined, at least partially: 
" A state which develops a special and an absolutely 
automatic and irresistible suggestibility.'* 

In order to define hypnotism more completely, it 
would be necessary to be able to characterize it in itself, 
disregarding all relation with suggestion and suggesti- 
bility; but in the actual state of our researches, we do 
not yet possess a sufficiently complete knowledge of its 
characteristics and its effects to be able to establish this 
definition. 

The name given to it, and which likens it to sleep, 
shows that it is generally conceived as " a state of tor- 
por or of cerebral stupor, when the greater part of the 
superior functions are suspended or inhibitive," while 
an exceptional dynamogenic state is produced in the in- 
ferior centers of the cephalo-rachidian axis. 

This seems to us to be the conception of hypnotic 
suggestion resulting from the simple description of facts 
such as all the world can observe. Yet it conflicts 
with a conception wholly different, which pretends to 
come from observation, but which seems to be the 
product of a systematic spirit, and in which it is diffi- 
cult for us to see anything but pure construction a priori. 
This conception is that of the School of Nancy. 

According to Professor Bernheim, who is the theo- 
rist of that School, hypnotic suggestion does not differ, in 
reality, from ordinary suggestion; or, more properly 
speaking, there is only one kind of suggestion, which is 



SUGGESTION iii 

defined : " The act by which an idea is introduced into 
the brain and accepted by it." Then, there, is sugges- 
tion whenever an idea, being introduced into the mind 
of an individual, is accepted by him, believed and 
obeyed, and he feels and acts accordingly. From that, 
suggestion is everywhere in human life — example, 
education, eloquence, moral authority, so many forms 
of suggestion which do not differ essentially from hyp- 
notic suggestion. 

This, wholly as the other, depends directly and exclu- 
sively upon a general and normal property of the human 
brain — suggestibility ; that is to say, upon that credu- 
lity and natural docility, common to all human beings, 
which causes them to believe and to do what is told 
them, under the immediate impression of all idea that 
h presented to them with sufficient force or insistence. 

It is, then, useless, from this point of view, to sup- 
pose that suggestion has for a preliminary condition a 
certain state of the nervous system, more or less analo- 
gous to sleep, and named hypnotism. Far from sugges- 
tion being a function of hypnotism, it is hypnotism 
which is a function of suggestion, " Suggestion," said 
Dr. Bernheim, *' is the key to all the phenomena of 
hypnotism." In other words, there is no hypnotism, 
there is only suggestion. The so-called hypnotic sleep 
is no more than suggested sleep, identical in essence 
with ordinary sleep. In the same way that laughing, 
dancing, nausea, etc., can be produced by suggestion, 
so sleep can be produced; but there is no reason for 
according a preponderant importance to this particu- 
lar effect of suggestion and for considering it more 



112 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE FUTURE 

characteristic than any other. Once more, let us re- 
peat, it is suggestion which explains all, while suggestion 
itself is self-explanatory. 

From the very opposition of these two conceptions, it 
can be concluded that if suggestion is, in certain re- 
spects, a fact, it is in certain other respects an enigma 
which presents a problem, or many problems, to be 
solved. Consequently, before employing it, or in 
order to be able to employ it with some certainty as an 
hypothesis, it must be minutely studied in its different 
forms, and analyzed by all the processes of the experi- 
mental method. 

It does not seem to us that, up to the present time, 
this preliminary work has been done, or at least that it 
has been carried sufficiently far. 

Whatever the School of Nancy may say, the differ- 
ences which separate hypnotic suggestion from ordinary 
suggestion are too striking for it to be possible to make 
them disappear by a pure and simple negation. Will- 
ingly or unwillingly, this problem presents itself to the 
mind : How does It happen that in the case of hypnotic 
suggestion the subject loses all control over his sen- 
sations, his ideas, even his acts, and becomes an autom- 
aton in the hands of the one who suggestloned him? 

The artifice to which the School of Nancy has re- 
course In order to suppress the difficulty consists, on 
the whole, in abusing the principle of continuity. As 
we have shown In the preceding chapter, it is always 
possible, from the philosophic or scientific point of 
view, to claim that all things in nature continue insensi- 
bly and are mingled one in another. Between two ex- 



SUGGESTION 113 

treme states, such as the abnormal state and the state of 
hypnotic suggestibility, there can be imagined an infinity 
of intermediary states by which the passage is made 
from one extreme to the other. But this is true also in 
all the orders of natural facts, and nevertheless this 
universal continuity does not prevent science from estab- 
lishing in all these facts the distinctions and the opposi- 
tions without which it would not be possible for us to 
submit them to the Influence of our thought and our 
action. 

On the other hand, the doctrine of the School of 
Nancy, if we understand it correctly, sees In sugges- 
tion nothing but an exclusively psychological phenom- 
enon. In any case, if It does not deny that there may 
be In suggestion extra-psychological elements. It disre- 
gards it completely. The definition given by Bernhelm, 
which we have mentioned above, speaks, It Is true, of 
the brain, and that gives It a physiological appearance. 
But It is nothing more than an appearance. 

This formula : " Suggestion is the act by which an 
Idea Is Introduced Into the brain and accepted by It," 
should not be taken literally. From a strictly physio- 
logical point of view, there is no idea In the brain, but 
cells, fibers, blood, diverse humors, perhaps also cur- 
rents and discharges more or less analogous to elec- 
trical currents and discharges. Therefore, It cannot 
be seen how the brain could accept or reject an Idea, In 
the same way that the stomach accepts or rejects food. 
The word " brain " Is used here Improperly Instead of 
the word " mind," and the definition that It gives us Is, 
In reality, purely psychological. It does not contain 



114 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE FUTURE 

any indication, it does not throw any light upon what 
can happen simultaneously in the brain when an idea is 
introduced into the mind and accepted by it. 

The analyses — too rare and too superficial, more- 
over — which the School of Nancy has made of sugges- 
tion, remain always confined within the psychological 
field. It is a question of belief, of persuasion, of ex- 
pectant attention, of imagination, etc. — all terms which 
are connected exclusively with the states of conscious- 
ness. Also, the processes employed habitually by the 
School of Nancy to produce suggestion are, or at least 
pretend to be, of purely moral order. It peremptorily 
states that the subject is gazed at more or less fixedly, 
that his forehead, his eyelids, etc., are touched lightly; 
but all these gestures have no importance: they are 
simply to fix the attention of the subject and to strike his 
imagination. The true agent, the only one which is 
really efficacious, is the word of the operator, which in- 
culcates or imposes the idea ; and suggestion is realized 
finally when the mind believes. 

The essential thing would be, then, to induce the sub- 
ject to believe; belief once installed in his mind dis- 
penses with all the rest. 

Let us note that the theory of the masters of the 
School of Nancy is the expression of their personal 
practise and technique. They are not scientists who 
experiment in laboratories in entirely disinterested re- 
searches ; they are physicians who work in clinics for the 
purpose of curing or relieving patients. The patients 
themselves come to them knowing that they come to be 
treated by suggestion, being already convinced of the 



SUGGESTION 115 

efficacy of the treatment, and impressed by the mysteri- 
ous power which they attribute to these physicians. 

One can understand that, in these conditions, not em- 
ploying — or not believing that they employ — any- 
thing but persuasion, the School of Nancy actually 
imagines that there is no other process. Looking else- 
where, however, we will find that their formula is really 
too restricted to agree with all the ensemble of facts 
observed. 

First of all, a large number of operators claim that, 
by purely physical processes, without the intervention 
of any idea^ they obtain a particular condition called the 
hypnotic state, which is usually accompanied by an ab- 
normal suggestibility. It Is thus that Braid claimed to 
have provoked hypnosis by the prolonged fixation of a 
brilliant point, independently of all suggestion. He 
says: 

I called one of my domestic servants who knew nothing of 
mesmerism, and in the instructions which I gave him I made 
him believe that his fixed attention was necessary in order to 
watch a chemical experiment dealing with the preparation of a 
medicine. As I had frequently asked him to do this, he ex- 
pressed no surprise. 

Two minutes and a half later his eyelids closed slowly, with 
a vibratory movement; his head fell forward on his chest; he 
heaved a sigh, and was instantly plunged into a deep sleep. 

However this fact may be explained, it is wholly 
Impossible to discover in It the elements of true sugges- 
tion; for Braid had not suggested to his servant that he 
should go'to sleep but, quite the contrary, he had told 



ii6 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE FUTURE 

him to pay strict attention in order to watch a chemical 
experiment. 

Here is another instance, reported by Dr. Lajoie, of 
Nashua, New Hampshire: 

I was called to a twelve-year-old child who had slept for 
twenty hours. Greatly alarmed, the parents asked me what 
this meant. I woke the child, but not easily, by suggesting to 
him the idea of waking. And this boy showed me a shining 
crystal bowl on the table. " I was amusing myself watching 
the sun shine on that bowl," he said ; " I felt tired ; and I 
do not remember anything else." 

It is true that Dr. Lajoie added: " There is no evi- 
dence there of any suggestion other than that due to 
fatigue." He may have said this, however, to be in 
accord with the doctrine of suggestion. 

And this does not explain how the sensation of 
fatigue was able to suggest to the child the idea that he 
must go into a sleep that would last twenty hours and 
be so deep that his parents could not wake him — a 
sleep which, however, was able to cease merely by the 
suggestion of waking. 

Another case of the same kind has been observed by 
Dr. Auguste Voisin. It is that of a young girl, 
twenty years old, affected with convulsive attacks, whom 
he hypnotized by means of Dr. Luys' rotative mirror, 
without any suggestion whatsoever. 

Similarly, Dr. Crocq asserts that he has hypnotized 
an hysterical patient in the hospital of Molenbeek by 
the simple fixation of the gaze. No one knew at the 
time that Dr. Crocq studied these questions, and previ- 
ous to this experiment none of the kind had ever been 



SUGGESTION 117 

made there. This patient presented, after the first 
seance, true somnambulism, with complete insensibility. 

*' In these conditions unconscious suggestion is not 
possible," says Dr. Crocq. And he adds: ** Since 
then, at any instant, I have succeeded in putting to 
sleep, by the fixation of a brilliant object, subjects abso- 
lutely ignorant of what was required of them." 

Finally, hypnotization in animals is scarcely ex- 
plained by the hypothesis of suggestion. When a 
cockerel is hypnotized by the process of Father Kircher 
— In having his beak fixed for several minutes over a 
white line drawn on the ground — it is easy to under- 
stand that there is no suggestion there: that Is, no 
effect produced by an Idea, as If the cockerel understood 
that it was intended that he should go to sleep, and 
persuaded himself ipso facto that it was impossible not 
to go to sleep. 

It would be better to be resigned to establishing the 
fact, and to confess that the mechanism is not yet 
know^n. But nothing is harder for certain minds, even 
though trained by scientific culture, than to acknowl- 
edge, ingenuously, their Ignorance. 

It seems to us, then, extremely probable that there 
exists a particular state of the nervous system — hyp- 
notism — undoubtedly connected by close rapports 
with suggestion, but which cannot be made to coin- 
cide with it completely. 

This state resembles sleep, and appears to be accom- 
panied, as sleep also Is, by a sort of stupor or torpor 
of the psychological activity of the individual, a dimi- 
nution of his mental energy, a contraction of his con- 
sciousness, a more or less complete paralysis of his 



ii8 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE FUTURE 

will — all of this being perhaps originally produced 
by purely physical causes. It possesses, as an ordinary 
though not constant effect, the apparition of an abnor- 
mal and excessive suggestibility, which, once deter- 
mined, can react on its own cause and produce the 
hypnotic state, or can strengthen it. 

The School of Nancy pretends, it is true, that hyp- 
notic sleep — meaning hypnosis under the classical 
form of somnambulism — does not differ from ordi- 
nary sleep ; that it is no more than a sleep provoked by 
suggestion. 

But this assertion is absolutely contradicted by the 
facts. 

In ordinary sleep the individual does not understand 
what is said to him, or, if he understands, he wakes; 
his tactile sensibility may be lessened, but it remains, 
and if he is touched roughly, pinched, or pricked, he 
reacts in his sleep. 

How is it that in hypnotic sleep the subject continues 
to understand his hypnotlzer, to answer him, and espe- 
cially to obey him by executing all his suggestions, even 
the most absurd and extravagant? How is it that he 
often presents complete insensibility, to such an extent 
that he can be touched, pinched, pricked, etc., without 
appearing to feel anything? How is it that he wakes 
only when ordered to do so by his hypnotlzer, and 
that, as a general rule, he has, after waking, no rec- 
ollection of anything that has happened during his 
sleep, and even sometimes of anything that has immedi- 
ately preceded it? It Is true, also, — and we have 
many times observed this — that when once awakened 
the subject cannot even remember having been asleep, 



SUGGESTION 119 

and declares, in perfectly good faith, that he has victo- 
riously resisted the processes of the hypnotizer. In 
order to convince him, it is necessary to put him to 
sleep again, and to produce, either in him or about him, 
some visible change which will prove to him, when he 
is again awakened, that he has actually been asleep. 

Let us note, moreover, one prominent characteristic 
of hypnotic sleep which is foreign to ordinary sleep. 
It is that there is present sometimes, in certain sub- 
jects, the phenomenon called rapport. By this is meant 
that the subject hypnotized seems to be in relation with 
no one but his hypnotizer : it is his hypnotizer only that 
he understands, and it is to him only that he responds. 
All other individuals are, for the subject, as if they 
did not exist, at least unless they put themselves en 
rapport with the hypnotizer by touching him; but the 
instant the contact ceases, they cease to be en rapport 
with the subject. 

The situation is, then, entirely different from that 
which would be observed If the subject were to sleep 
as the effect of his own conviction that he was going to 
fall into an ordinary sleep; for, in this case, he could 
not hear the one who suggested that he go to sleep, or 
else he could hear all other persons as well. He would 
dream spontaneously; he would snore — If he had that 
habit; he would, in a word, present in this state all the 
symptoms of his ordinary sleep. It Is well authenti- 
cated that subjects In the hypnotic state are not con- 
scious of being asleep. We have found that a large 
number who, while In a deep hypnotic state, were asked : 
" Are you asleep? " have answered us with an expres- 
sion of astonishment: " Why, no; I am not asleep ! " 



120 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE FUTURE 

The partizans of suggestion will endeavor to meet 
the question by alleging that all the differences which 
apparently distinguish hypnotic sleep from ordinary 
sleep are, in reahty, the effects of suggestion. If the 
subject, so-called hypnotized, continues to understand 
his hypnotizer, to answer him, to obey him, it is because 
he has suggested this to himself. If, on waking, he 
remembers nothing of his sleep, it is because this 
amnesia has been suggested to him. In the same way, 
the phenomenon of rapport, if it really exists (for sug- 
gestionists would prefer on the whole to deny it rather 
than give an explanation even conforming to their 
theory) can be only the effect of previous suggestion. 

Unfortunately, all the assertions are, we repeat, 
wholly contradicted by the facts. 

The first case of authentic somnambulism constated 
and described by mesmerists is, it seems, that of the 
famous Victor Vielet, who went to sleep spontaneously 
under the passes made by the Marquis de Puysegur, and 
who at the very beginning, to the great surprise of de 
Puysegur, presented all the symptoms of hypnotic sleep. 

I have more than once operated upon subjects who 
were wholly ignorant of hypnotism, not in the least sus- 
pecting the purpose of the processes I practised upon 
them (passes, contact of the hands upon the shoulder- 
blades, etc.), and who, moreover, have fallen immedi- 
ately into a deep sleep, with anesthesia, amnesia, ex- 
clusive rapport, etc. On the other hand, I have very 
frequently operated upon subjects who were well 
versed In hypnotism and were very desirous of being 
hypnotized, but who remained completely refractory 
to all my attempts at hypnotization and suggestion, or 



SUGGESTION 121 

who would go only into an incomplete hypnotic sleep. 

One subject conserves his sensibility intact, and does 
not lose it even if he is suggestioned to do so. Another 
subject, although in appearance also easily suggestible, 
continues to feel the contacts, pinches, pricks, etc., 
executed upon him, even if it is suggestioned to him 
that he will not feel them. Almost all, once awakened, 
have no recollection of what happened during their 
sleep, even though amnesia had not in any way been 
suggested to them. Certain others, who are told: 
*' You do not remember anything! " have very faithful 
and clear recollections. Many are en rapport not only 
with the operator but also with all the assistants; 
some, on the other hand, communicate only with the 
operator or with persons in contact with him, without 
any suggestion intervening. It is often due to chance 
that the operator himself discovers this fact, one of the 
assistants having taken the initiative to speak to the 
subject, who, by his immobility and his silence, brings 
them to recognize, then to verify, that he has not under- 
stood. 

What causes these inequalities, these differences be- 
tween different individuals in the manner of reacting 
to hypnotic or suggestive processes and of realizing 
hypnosis? 

It would be playing with words to invoke suggestion 
here, even under the form — easy to suppose but diffi- 
cult to prove — of autosuggestion. 

The School of Nancy would say that if a subject, In 
spite of his desire to be put to sleep, in spite of the 
willingness with which he lends himself to the attempts 
to hypnotize him, remains rebellious to all suggestion, 



122 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE FUTURE 

it is undoubtedly because he is suggestioned uncon- 
sciously that he will not sleep, that he will not be sug- 
gestioned. If a certain other subject, even though put 
to sleep, retains his sensibility, it is because he has un- 
consciously suggested to himself that he will remain 
sensitive. And so forth. 

With this manner of reasoning, anything can be ex- 
plained and proved, without the trouble of observing 
and experimenting. 

Let us, however, place ourselves in the position in 
which the School of Nancy is fortified, and try to follow 
the consequences of its theory to the end. Sugges- 
tion, we claim, owes its power to the natural suggesti- 
bility of the brain, or, more properly speaking, of the 
human mind. It is a normal consequence of the credu- 
lity and the docility natural to the entire human race. 
It is a consequence of that psychological law in virtue 
of which all ideas tend to be affirmed and realized, un- 
less hindered by the equal tendency of other contradic- 
tory ideas — a law which Spinoza seems first to have 
stated, and which has been repeated since by many au- 
thors, such as Herbart, Dugald-Stewart, and Taine, 
and which might be called, with the French philosopher 
Fouillee, the law of idea-forces. 

However, we must not disregard the fact that this 
law, which renders suggestion possible, renders auto- 
suggestion equally possible ; and the latter can — must, 
even, in many circumstances — be in oppositior to the 
former. 

Every human individual is, it might be said, autosug- 
gestioned in a great many ways : by his innate or hered- 
itary inclinations, his habits, his recollections, the 



SUGGESTION 123 

education he has received, the experiences he has had in 
the course of his past Hfe; and all these autosugges- 
tions can constitute so many countersuggestions with 
regard to some particular suggestion coming from an- 
other individual. 

Among these permanent autosuggestions, should 
be included faith in the testimony of our senses and 
our memory, confidence in the constancy of the order 
of nature, at least in a broad sense, the instinct of con- 
servation and of self-preservation, which forms the 
basis of all that which we call, in practise, our will and 
our liberty. 

If a suggestion coming from the outside does not 
contradict, does not clash with, these fundamental 
autosuggestions, it has a chance of being accepted by 
us, of prevailing upon our belief, our consent, or even 
our obedience. For all suggestion of this kind we 
would propose the term plausible suggestion. 

A suggestion to which might be applied the term 
paradoxical suggestion is that, for example, which 
would be able to make us believe it is night when it is 
midday; or that some one we know has been dead for 
a long time has come to pay us a visit; or that a 
candle is lighted simply by blowing upon it; or that we 
cannot open nor shut our eyes, fold our arms, move our 
legs, etc., merely because we have been told that we 
cannot do so. Any such suggestion cannot fail to wake 
in us an immediate and energetic countersuggestion re- 
sulting from our fundamental autosuggestions. 

Normally, to any one who gave me a suggestion of 
this kind, I should respond either by laughing at him, or 
by demanding if he were not mocking me, or if he had 



124 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE FUTURE 

not lost his reason. But In the case of a hypnotized 
subject, normal countersuggestion does not apply. The 
fundamental autosuggestions are, as it were, inert, the 
subject believing the improbable, the impossible. 

The problem of hypnotic suggestion lies in knowing 
precisely why this suggestion does not encounter the 
opposition of the habitual reducteiirs of all paradoxical 
suggestion: and it is very evident that this "why" is 
not to be found in suggestion. All happens as if an 
unknown influence had momentarily made a void in the 
mind, so as to give free rein to the idea suggested and 
enable It thus to be developed without obstacle. It is 
this unknown Influence, without which suggestion could 
not exist, that Durand de Gros called hypotaxy, and 
that Is known more generally as hypnotism. Thus, we 
have had only to follow the doctrine of suggestion far 
enough In order to go beyond It and become convinced 
that suggestion Itself presupposes another principle. 

This appears more evident still If we consider the 
cases where the habitual rediicteurs of paradoxical sug- 
gestion, even though awake and active, find themselves 
powerless to reduce It. In the practise of the School 
of Nancy these reductions are, so to speak, out of play: 
the patients are informed of the power of the sugges- 
tloner, and disposed In advance to submit to the effects; 
the suggestions which will be given them — knowing, 
as they do, that they are for the curing or relieving of 
their ailment — are. In their eyes, not paradoxical 
but plausible. It happens wholly otherwise with an 
operator acting upon the first persons who come to him, 
and who lend themselves to his action out of simple 



SUGGESTION 125 

curiosity, but with the idea well determined that he 
will not obtain any effect. 

How may we explain the elements of suggestion, as 
defined by the School of Nancy, in such a case as that 
of " Laverdant," curiously analyzed by Durand de 
Gros in his Cours de Braidismef ^ 

The subject assisted for the first time at a seance of hypno- 
tism; and in placing himself at the disposition of the experi- 
menter, he did so in order to "fill a gap " and nothing more. 
He was not actually under the influence of any idea of sug- 
gestion; he did not expect in any way to be suggestloned ; he 
did not know, even, precisely what the experiment would be; 
his whole thought was to take advantage of the occasion to get 
his customary short nap. An instant after gazing intently upon 
the object placed In his hand, he became hypnotized. Not hav- 
ing ceased to be fully awake, he did not believe possible the 
realization of the hypnotizer's affirmations. It was almost 
with indignation that he resented the latter's suggestion that 
he did not know one of the letters of his name. And when 
this fact was realized, he showed stupefaction and consternation 
no less than any of the assistants. 

Durand de Gros believes it can be concluded that, in 
a like case, the subject who obeys suggestion is not the 
same as one who, receiving it, struggles against it with 
all his power. 

" On the one hand," he says, " the real will of the 
subject, the will of which he has consciousness, remains 
Intact, since he Intends to resist the mysterious experi- 
ment, and he wills it energetically to the end. On the 

1 Cours theoriqiie et pratique de Braidisme, published under the 
pseudonym of Dr. Philips. 



126 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE FUTURE 

other hand, that which causes an act of faith and obedi- 
ence in the subject is not the subject himself, properly 
speaking; it is another ego than his ego/* 

In other words, suggestion, in facts of this kind, re- 
veals to us a mechanism much more complicated than 
the simplistic doctrine which the School of Nancy builds 
and pulls to pieces with such assurance. There are 
more mysteries in suggestion than dreamed of by that 
School. We have shown in Our Hidden Forces the 
very important role played by crytopsychism in sug- 
gestion ; and it does not seem to us that the partisans of 
suggestion, as understood by Bernheim, could doubt 
this. 

But what conclusion can we draw from all this dis- 
cussion? 

First of all, the method which consists in explaining 
concrete facts by abstract terms, such as suggestion and 
suggestibility f seems to us antiscientific in the highest 
degree; it is an old remnant of the scholastic method, 
a recourse to entities, to qualities, and occult virtues. 

There is a subject to whom I give, at will, hallucina- 
tions of the most impossible order, whose organs I 
paralyze at pleasure. What can be the cause of effects 
so extraordinary? It is very simple: it is all sugges- 
tion. But this suggestion, how is it explained? From 
whence comes its power? That is very simple also: it 
is a consequence of suggestibility, a natural property of 
the human brain. 

Thus it is believed that facts are explained in muffling 
them in a name, just as the scholastics believed that they 
explained sleep produced by opium in saying that opium 
has a sleep-producing virtue ! 



SUGGESTION 127 

According to this reasoning, it would be useless to 
seek the particular cause of each of the maladies from 
which humanity suffers; it would be sufficient to say, 
" It is a malady," or, upon insistence, to evoke morbid- 
ity, that Is to say, the natural property which every 
human organism possesses to become diseased. 

In this question, as In all others, the true scientific 
method consists In seeking the cause of a phenomenon 
in its material conditions, In Its physical antecedents or 
concomitants. Suggestion and suggestibility are not 
real causes; they are simply names to designate the 
facts themselves of which we must seek the causes. In 
other words, they are the verbal causes, provisional, 
conventional, behind which are hidden the real causes, 
which remain to be discovered, and which, when we 
know them, will permit us not only to understand their 
effects but even to foresee them, and to control them at 
our will. 

Inasmuch as experience shows us that all human in- 
dividuals are not suggestible, or all at least are sug- 
gestible in different degrees, and also that an Individual 
suggestible to-day In certain circumstances will not be 
suggestible later In apparently Identical circumstances,^ 
it is very necessary to admit that suggestion is not a 
fact subsisting in itself, an absolute fact, of which it is 
useless to seek the cause, and which can only itself be 
evoked as the cause of all the particular suggestions; 
but it is, on the contrary, an effect depending upon con- 
ditions still unknown, the knowledge of which Is pre- 
cisely the aim of scientific research. 

2 There are some subjects who might be called intermittents. 
(Charles Richet: De quelques phenomenes de suggestion sans hypnot- 
isme.) 



128 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE FUTURE 

However, we are sufficiently well acquainted with the 
general laws of the physiological life to know that this 
life has, at least in part, its conditions in the organism, 
notably in the nervous system and the brain. 

There are certain cases where psychological phe- 
nomena appear to complement one another, and it is 
not necessary, in order to render them intelligible, to 
separate them from their series. Such is, for example, 
a long algebraic or geometric demonstration, in which 
the mind seems to be concerned only with itself and to 
obey exclusively its own laws. 

But this appears not to be the case with hypnotic sug- 
gestion. In order that the idea introduced into the 
subject's consciousness by means of the spoken word 
may produce automatically the hallucinations, amnesia, 
paralysis, etc., it is necessary to seek the cause of these 
effects outside of the mind itself, in some modification 
— the nature of which is still unknown — of the circu- 
latory and nervous state of the brain centers and of all 
the cerebro-spinal system. 

So long as this modification is not produced, if I were 
to say to a subject : " You cannot open your eyes ; you 
cannot fold your arms, nor bend your knees," he would 
ridicule my suggestions. When, however, this modifi- 
cation is produced, in spite of his credulity, in spite of 
his efforts to resist me, he is forced to obey (as was 
shown in the case of La verdant). 

In this nervous and cerebral modification, in this 
hypotaxic state of the subject's organism, resides the 
true cause of the phenomena of which the sugges- 
tion of the operator is but the occasion, the determi- 
nant condition. 



SUGGESTION 129 

There is, however, no reason to suppose a priori 
that this modification, of a physical or physiological 
nature, can be produced only by suggestion, which is 
of a psychological order. Where suggestion is possi- 
ble, it seems that it can be produced by a large number 
of different causes — as is shown in the case of the 
numerous and diverse processes of hypnotization; by all 
those causes, at least, which sufficiently disturb the cus- 
tomary equilibrium of the system. 

On the other hand, as we have already shown, ex- 
perience proves that purely physical processes — such 
as the prolonged fixation of the gaze upon a certain 
spot (experiments of Braid, Grimm, and Dr. Philips), 
not to mention passes — produce the state very rapidly 
in a large number of subjects, and prepare them for 
the effects of suggestion. 

Therefore, it is not true that hypnotism, which is 
confused with the hypotaxic state, is nothing but sug- 
gestion. Quite the contrary, suggestion, in the great 
majority of cases, has hypnotism for a preliminary con- 
dition. 

Hypnotism and suggestion are two connected but dis- 
tinct facts, not necessarily existing in the same propor- 
tion. There are subjects who are suggestible in the 
highest degree, and in whom the hypnotic state is pro- 
duced only with great difficulty and remains more or 
less superficial. On the other hand, there exist certain 
individuals who can be hypnotized with the utmost ease, 
and upon whom suggestion has but little influence.^ 

3 We readily believe that the apparition of suggestibility is a char- 
acteristic of hypnotism, but only in its initial or middle phase, and 
that, in the measure that suggestion becomes stronger, hypnotism 
grows weaker and tends finally to disappear. This is only an hypoth- 



130 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE FUTURE 

It would be interesting to study all these anomalies, 
not at random from observations made in a clinic, but 
by experimental researches methodically pursued in a 
laboratory. 

In the absence of this study, suggestion will remain, 
for a long time to come, a certain but enigmatical fact ; 
and its use as an hypothesis must be accompanied by 
many precautions and reservations. 

Ill 

We have distinguished two different uses of the hy- 
pothesis: one theoretical, the other experimental, ac- 
cording to whether we make it serve to explain facts 
already known, or to experiment in order to discover 
new facts or to prove a new law. 

Suggestion also can play this double role in the 
parapsychic sciences, and we must look upon it first as 
a theoretical hypothesis, and then as an experimental 
hypothesis. 

It is especially, and perhaps even exclusively, with 
the first of these two points of view that the School 
of Nancy has ranged itself. Suggestion has been in its 
hands, above all else, a process of explanation by means 
of which it has tried to account for the various hyp- 
notic phenomena and their different characteristics. In 
other words, it has tried to systematize these phenom- 
ena by having them all derived from a sole principle; 
and to accomplish this it resorted much more to reason- 
ing than to experimentation. 

esis; but it would be worth the trouble, we think, to verify it, and, 
in any case, it could serve as the fil conducteur of experimental re- 
searches. 



SUGGESTION 131 

One may be surprised at this assertion, and may 
contest its exactness by observing that the partizans of 
this School use suggestion constantly in their practise. 
It is by means of suggestion that they put their subjects 
to sleep ; it is by this means that they obtain all kinds of 
phenomena — of a physical or physiological order as 
well as of a mental order; and by this means they de- 
vise treatments for all the most varied affections. 

This practical use of suggestion has nothing to do 
with the experimental hypothesis, which is quite a dif- 
ferent thing from a simple operative process. 

Knowing that suggestion produces certain specific 
effects, it is quite natural for it to be employed when 
these effects are desired. There does not enter into 
that any kind of hypothesis — at least so long as the 
operator does not try to obtain, by means of sugges- 
tion, some effect which he does not know that it is really 
capable of producing. 

However, for the clarity of this study, it will be 
helpful to look upon suggestion as an operative process 
before regarding it as an hypothesis, either theoretical 
or experimental. This preliminary consideration will 
have the advantage of clearing up the field for the dis- 
cussion which will follow. 

The first and principal use of suggestion made by the 
School of Nancy — especially by Dr. Liebeault, the 
founder of the School — had for its aim the curing or 
the alleviation of pain. When Dr. Liebeault asked his 
patients why they came to him, each of them invariably 
answered: " I came to be cured." Similarly, in the 
clinic of Bernheim it was, above all else, a question of 
treatment. 



132 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE FUTURE 

From this it seems that the Nancian operative tech- 
nique contains two successive processes, the first serving 
simply to prepare and, so to speak, induce the second. 
It is always necessary to put the patient to sleep, or at 
least to influence him, in order to put him in a state in 
which he will be able to receive the suggestion and 
realize it. Then, once the way is open, the idea is im- 
pressed upon his mind; and this idea itself, by means of 
a mysterious process, will provoke in the organism the 
reactions which will result in the recovery of health. 

It is evident that in this second operation, suggestion 
alone is used, in its more authentic form — verbal and 
direct. " Your fever will decrease," the patient is told. 
*' You will no longer have excessive perspiration." 
" You will have a good appetite," etc. 

In the first operation, suggestion can be reinforced by 
aids which sometimes completely disguise it. This is 
what is called reinforced suggestion. 

Upon a patient who is already influenced by his repu- 
tation, the environment, etc., the operator acts not only 
by means of words, but still more so by means of the 
gaze, the slight touches upon the eyelids and temples, 
and even by the passes. In his own. mind all this is 
nothing more than suggestion, indirect and tacit, whose 
purpose is to complete the direct suggestion — that 
which is made by word and consists in the enumeration 
of the symptoms the operator wishes to produce: 
" You are thinking only of sleep — your eyelids are 
heavy — they are about to close — they are closing 
already," etc. 

Therefore, when it is a question of obtaining a prac- 
tical result, the nature of the -process employed — theo- 



SUGGESTION 133 

retically known or unknown — is of little importance ; 
the essential thing is that it be efficacious. In order to 
use suggestion, it is not necessary to know what it is, 
after all — no more than in the case of electricity. 
Often, even, if one process does not succeed, it can be 
replaced by another; according to the popular expres- 
sion, " An arrow can be made of any wood.'* 

It is thus that Liebeault and Bernheim, having vainly 
tried to cure a patient of pain by means of direct sug- 
gestion, did not hesitate to take recourse to passes, at- 
tributing their success, however, to suggestion. 

Similarly, the exclusive partisans of animal magnet- 
ism or of hypnotism use suggestion in many cases when 
they try, not to prove a certain theory, but merely to 
obtain a result; the Important thing with them then is 
to succeed. 

However, If the School of Nancy has employed sug- 
gestion especially for therapeutic or medical purposes. 
It has employed It also, although less frequently, for 
experimental purposes ; for Instance, in its controversies 
with the School of Paris. But this second use, as well 
as the first, is possible only because it gives informa- 
tion, in advance, by means of sufficiently repeated and 
varied observations, of the list of principal effects that 
it is capable of producing. 

It is useless to have recourse to suggestion to pro- 
duce in a subject a certain physical or mental modifica- 
tion, If It Is known In advance that suggestion is inca- 
pable of provoking it. On the other hand, it will be 
deliberately employed if it is a question of an effect 
that comes within its field of action. It is, then, 
extremely interesting for the operator to know exactly 



134 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE FUTURE 

how far the power of suggestion extends, and where it 
stops; for, evidently, however extensive it may be, it 
must have its limits. 

Suggestion undoubtedly is limited by the possibilities 
and the necessities resulting from natural laws; cer- 
tainly it cannot perform miracles. For instance, if I 
suggest to a subject that he will never die, I can make 
him believe absolutely in his own immortality and 
imagine that in the future he will be safe from death; 
but shall I be able to make him actually immortal? If 
I suggest to a subject that he is very cold, or very warm, 
he will really feel, subjectively, these sensations; but it 
is not certain that the temperature of his body will 
become higher or lower in proportion, and that a ther- 
mometer put in contact with his skin will indicate forty 
degrees (Centigrade) or zero; with greater reason, it 
cannot be supposed that the temperature of the room 
is raised or lowered in accordance with the imaginations 
and beliefs of the subject. 

Perhaps the question will be made clearer by dis- 
tinguishing two great classes of effects of suggestion, 
even though in practise they are inseparably linked to- 
gether. These are : 

(i) The effects of a subjective order. 

(2) The effects of an objective order. 

Being given the nature of suggestion, such as we 
have defined it after the School of Nancy, for instance 
in a state of conviction, persuasion, absolute faith, there 
is nothing surprising, it seems, in that it may have sub- 
jective effects of a power in some ways illimited; but its 
objective effects are not equally easy to understand. 

Thus, if I suggest to a subject that he feels an in- 



SUGGESTION 135 

tense cold, a cold ten degrees below zero, it seems nat- 
ural that the subject would believe what I say to him, 
and that he would feel, or imagine he feels, a sensa- 
tion of cold so intense as to cause him to shiver, his 
teeth to chatter, etc.^ But there is in that only a 
subjective effect: that is, a belief and a sensation, or 
rather an hallucination involved in the belief. It is 
true that the chill, the chattering of teeth, etc., are ob- 
jective phenomena; but are these phenomena the direct 
effects of suggestion? Are they not immediately linked 
to sensation and consequently also to the hallucinatory 
image, in a way that causes this to appear in the mind 
with or without suggestion? 

It would, on the contrary, be an incontestable objec- 
tive effect if the thermometer, put in contact with the 
subject's body, registered a noticeable lowering of the 
temperature, especially a lowering to ten degrees below 
zero. As no such effect is observed ordinarily, it would 
be very necessary in this case to attribute it to sugges- 
tion. But then it would be necessary to admit at the 
same time that suggestion develops in the human being 
new powers really extraordinary by which the custom- 
ary relations of the subjective and the objective are 
greatly modified. 

In fact, it is really this that we establish in the major- 
ity of cases of suggestive therapeutics. We do not 
seem to have, in the normal state, the faculty of regulat- 
ing at will our different physiological functions; or, in 

■^We must note, however, that one subject who, under the effect of 
such a suggestion, could not avoid shivering, chattering his teeth, 
etc., declared all the while that he did not subjectively feel a cold 
sensation; this remaining in the state of a simple idea. (Charles 
Richet: De quelques phenomenes de suggestion sans hypnotisme.) 



136 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE FUTURE 

any case, this faculty remains latent and inactive in us. 
But when an individual is put into the hypnotic state — 
or, if you prefer, into the state of effective suggestibility 
— he then becomes capable of determining at will, upon 
a simple word of the hypnotizer or the suggestioner, 
the complete anesthesia of certain of his organs, or of 
his entire organism — unless this be a hyperesthesia 
akin to the miraculous — the paralysis of all his muscu- 
lar forces or their paroxysmic exaltation, bringing into 
play all the vital energies, for the struggle against mi- 
crobes or the reparation of tissues impaired by morbid 
causes, etc. 

Here too we border upon mystery, or, more exactly, 
upon the enigma of suggestion. For one cannot help 
but believe that behind what is seen in suggestion — 
the word of him who suggested the idea and the faith of 
him who accepts it — there is also that which is not 
seen: that is to say, the unknown state of the subcon- 
sciousness and of the nervous system of the subject, 
perhaps even some unknown influence emanating from 
the operator which he himself does not doubt. 

It is true, as we have remarked above, that it is 
not important, for the practical use of suggestion, that 
we know or that we ignore its real nature. If, how- 
ever, it be once admitted — and a great number of facts 
appear to authorize this — that suggestion brings to 
light in human beings unsuspected powers, we cannot see 
why there should be imposed a priori a limit to that 
which it is possible to expect of suggestion, and why, 
consequently, the savants do not try to obtain by it the 
most improbable effects. Experiment alone can teach 



SUGGESTION 137 

us a posteriori that of which suggestion is or is not 
capable. 

Undoubtedly it is for this reason that the early mes- 
merists suggested to their subjects to perceive things 
situated outside of the normal field of action of their 
senses, claiming thus to produce the state of second 
sight in them; without, however, affirming that their 
suggestion did anything but reveal a natural, preexist- 
ent faculty, in itself independent of suggestion. 

Whatever the opinion of the different schools may 
be upon this particular point it does not seem to us 
justifiable to confine in practise the use of suggestion 
to a certain category of effects. Experimentation 
alone can reveal its true limits. 

IV 

It is necessary for us, meanwhile, to examine the 
value of suggestion as a principle of explanation for all 
this ensemble of phenomena which we designate as 
parapsychlc. For, in saying that suggestion is the key 
to all these phenomena, the exclusive partisans of sug- 
gestion mean. In our opinion, that all of the phenomena 
of this order which are real must be able to be explained 
by suggestion, and. Inversely, all those that suggestion 
does not explain must be considered as Inexistent and 
apocryphal. 

We wish to oppose to this assertion three objections: 

First: In an order of researches so difficult and so 

little advanced, the pretension to explain, to theorize, 

to carry everything back to a unique principle. Is In no 

way scientific. 



138 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE FUTURE 

A more urgent task imposes itself : to observe a con- 
tinually increasing number of facts, in conditions of 
certainty and exactitude as rigorous as possible; to 
compare, classify, analyze, and submit them, in a word, 
to all the processes of the scientific method, in an en- 
deavor to discover their laws. 

It is not a paradox but a simple statement of the 
truth to claim that the real scientific attitude consists 
in being indifferent to the desire for explanation, while 
confining one's energies to determining the phenomena. 

It is true that the hypothesis intervenes necessarily 
in this research; but it is then the experimental hypothe- 
sis, whose aim is not to explain the facts and rapports 
already known, but rather to discover new facts and 
new rapports. The theoretical hypothesis, on the con- 
trary — that which has for its aim the coordination and 
integration of the results acquired — is placed at the 
end of the operations of the method, not in the course 
of the experiment being made but when the researches 
are at an end. Can we truly believe that the study of 
the parapsychic phenomena has reached this point, 
already? 

Second: Any attempt to explain an ensemble of 
facts as numerous and as varied as those we are now 
discussing strikes itself against the difficulty resulting 
from the plurality of the inter-substitution of the causes. 
The exclusive partizans of suggestion reason invariably 
as if the same phenomenon were always produced by 
the same cause. " It is not true," said Stuart Mill, 
*' that the same phenomenon is invariably produced by 
the same cause : the effect may come sometimes from A, 



SUGGESTION 139 

sometimes from B. There are often many independent 
ways in which the same phenomenon may have origi- 
nated. Many causes may produce mechanical mo- 
tion; many causes may produce certain species of sen- 
sations; and many others produce death. A given 
effect can really be produced by a certain cause, and 
nevertheless be perfectly capable of being produced 
without It." 

Thus, while suggestion produces certain parapsychic 
phenomena — as, for example, somnambulism — it 
does not follow ipso facto that these same phenomena 
cannot be produced by any other cause than suggestion. 

Third: It is admitted unquestionably that a prin- 
ciple of explanation is all the more satisfactory, all the 
more sure, the clearer it is, the more luminous, or, to 
speak without metaphor, the less of the unknown It 
contains. Now, the analysis of suggestion as made 
above, either as a fact or as an operative process, dem- 
onstrates that there exist few facts so obscure and in 
which the part of the unknown is so great. To explain 
a certain parapsychic fact by suggestion is usually to 
explain ohscurum per ohscurum, if not per ohscurius. 

All these objections, which appear to be very great if 
applied to the theoretical suggestion-hypothesis, would 
singularly lose their force were they to aim at the ex- 
perimental suggestion-hypothesis; for, in this case, it 
no longer would be a question of an explanation which 
is given to complete and define a whole order of phe- 
nomena, but of a simple temporary Interpretation of a 
certain particular phenomenon or a certain particular 
group of phenomena. Even if false, it carries its cor- 



140 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE FUTURE 

recti ve, for it contains in itself the project and the plan 
of an experimentation by which it can immediately be 
confirmed or disproved. 

It does not seem to us that, up to the present time, 
suggestionists have thought — with rare exceptions — 
of supporting their affirmations and their deductions by 
proofs, and especially by experimental countcrproofs. 
Their method consists, in general, in showing that sug- 
gestion can produce — and consequently explain — 
all the parapsychic phenomena. They conclude that it 
is suggestion which produces and explains the phenom- 
ena in every case, even where it is impossible to prove 
that it may be present and active. When it can be 
proved that suggestion is certainly absent and has not 
been able to act in any way, then it must be concluded, 
according to them, that the phenomena are in reality 
imaginary, illusory — in a word, unscientific. 

First of all, let us consider suggestion in itself: 
Does it carry its own explanation? 

" Yes," says the suggestionists; " for it is explained 
by suggestibility, which is natural to every human brain. 
On the one hand, every human being is made to believe 
what is said to him, and, on the other hand, it is suffi- 
cient for him to believe in order to be made to realize 
his behef, either in the field of perception or in that of 
action." 

Thus suggestion is explained theoretically; and in 
order to verify the theory experimentally, the sugges- 
tionists are content to show that, by using the word to 
bring the credulity of a subject into play, he is effectively 
made to see or to do the most improbable things. This 
manner of reasoning and experimenting is that which 



SUGGESTION 141 

Bacon called an induction " per enumerationem sim- 
plicem, ubi non reperitur instantia contradictoria '' — -. 
induction by simple enumeration, where they do not give 
themselves the trouble to seek contradictory facts. 

It is true that there are people who are suggestioned 
with the greatest ease by the word of others. But 
does this signify that they are always and necessarily 
people of a credulous nature? Are there not also 
people — as in the case of Laverdant — who are in 
no way credulous, and upon whom, however, suggestion 
acts in spite of their incredulity? Inversely, are there 
not people who, believing in the all-power of sugges- 
tion, ardently desirous of being, suggestioned, do not 
succeed, nevertheless, in realizing the suggestions that 
are made upon them? 

It is these negative cases — which savants too often 
believe themselves able to be rid of by qualifying as 
exceptional — which are the really significant and in- 
structive cases ; for, in preventing us from stopping at 
the apparent causes, they orient our- researches toward 
the determination of the real causes. 

We have already shown that the hypothesis of sug- 
ge^stioB isjiot sufficient to explain all the characteristics 
of hypnotism. It explains neither the exclusive rap- 
port of the subject with the hypnotizer, nor the trans- 
missibility of this rapport to an assistant placed in con- 
tact with the hypnotizer. It explains neither the spon- 
taneous anesthesia of the subject, nor the consecutive 
amnesia. Nor does it explain the bringing into play 
of curative powers of the organism, and perhaps other 
still more mysterious powers. And there are many 
other circumstances it does not explain. These may 



142 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE FUTURE 

not be encountered in all cases, but they are observed 
frequently enough to demand an explanation of any 
hypothesis which pretends to give us " the key to all 
the phenomena of hypnosis." 

There is no question that, with these characteristics 
once known, it is always possible to try to reproduce 
them, to imitate them, we would unhesitatingly say to 
simulate them, by means of suggestion. One must 
necessarily recognize that suggestion is quite an extraor- 
dinary principle of imitation and of simulation. For 
example, it can be suggested to a subject that, once 
asleep, he will be en rapport with his hypnotizer only; 
and in this case the exclusive rapport — the work of 
suggestion — will imitate, simulate this same rapport 
as it is produced spontaneously in other cases quite 
apart from suggestion. Similarly, it can be suggested 
to a subject that all his sensitiveness will be abolished 
when he is asleep ; and in this case the total anesthesia 
— the work of suggestion — will imitate, simulate the 
same anesthesia that is produced spontaneously in 
other cases without suggestion. And so on. But, 
we say, in the same way, the purgative effects of castor- 
oil can be imitated, simulated in a subject by making 
him swallow clear water : can it be concluded that any 
one who takes castor-oil outside of all expressed sug- 
gestion is in reality purged only by virtue of a tacit 
suggestion? 

It is this kind of reasoning, or rather sophism, that 
is the basis of all the pretended experimental demon- 
strations of the exclusive suggestionists. 

On one hand, however great this power of imita- 
tion and simulation may be, it is not without weakness 



SUGGESTION 143 

and limitations. We have more than once impera- 
tively assured a subject that when he was asleep he 
would be en rapport with no one but the operator; or 
that he would lose all tactile sensibility; or that when 
awakened he would have no recollection of what had 
happened during his sleep. Yet, in spite of our sug- 
gestions, the subject would continue to be en rapport 
with all the assistants; to feel all the contacts; to re- 
member all that we had said or done to him. 

It is these characteristics of deep somnambulism, such 
as the transmissibility of the rapport by contact or con- 
duction, or such as the exteriorization of the sensitive- 
ness, that suggestion alone, without recourse to fraud, 
will remain always powerless to imitate. 

The great tactic of the pure suggestionists consists 
In denying all the phenomena which cannot be explained 
or produced by suggestion alone. 

" We have never constated," they say, " the ex- 
teriorization of the sensitiveness, the transmissibility 
of the rapport by contact or conduction, clairvoyance, 
etc. ; therefore these phenomena cannot exist. Those 
who believed they observed them have been duped by 
the fraud of the subjects or by their own illusion." 

We should like to know if the suggestionists have 
ever tried to be placed in the conditions which would 
permit them to constate these phenomena. Having 
systematically decided never to employ In their experi- 
ments anything but suggestion, they are thus condemned 
never to see anything but suggestion, and It Is with 
entire good faith that they declare that there Is not, 
and cannot be, anything else. 

It Is thus that Dr. Bernhelm held as valueless Dr. 



144 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE FUTURE 

Liebeault's curious work upon Zoomagnetisme^ in which 
he admitted the existence of a principle analogous in 
its effects to suggestion, but different in its nature, and 
which was no other than the old animal magnetism of 
Mesmer, Puysegur, Deleuze, du Potet, etc. 

It is thus, also, that all the domain of cryptopsy- 
chism, of telepathy, of mental suggestion, and, more 
especially, of spiritism, is closed to the partizans of a 
school which considers that the boundaries of its doC" 
trine are those of science and of reality. 



CHAPTER IX 

AN UNKNOWN FORCE 
Animal Magnetism, or " Biactinism " 



Does the human organism really possess the prop- 
erty of radiating a magnetic influence capable of acting 
at a distance upon another human organism? 

This is a question upon which the savants cannot 
agree. 

The problem, therefore, is an interesting one, and 
it presents such great importance — from the point of 
view of the general orientation of the psychical sci- 
ences — that it is necessary to examine it here in detail. 

Mesmer seems to have been the first to affirm the 
existence of this radiation of the human organism, 
which he compared to that of the magnet, or rather he 
considered it as being — as is the radiation of the mag- 
net — a particular case, a particular form of a uni- 
versal energy. In any event, the usage of calling this 
radiation animal magnetism, sometimes modified to 
vital magnetism, began with Mesmer. 

Perhaps a part of the disfavor which official scien- 
tists still attach to all affirmation or even to all study 
of human radiation comes really from this name. It 
is not the only case in which the words are inappro- 
priate to the ideas. The expression animal magnetism 

145 



146 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE FUTURE 

not only designates a certain ensemble of facts; it in- 
volves at the same time an hypothesis; it anticipates 
the explanation of these facts. Consequently, all those 
to whom this hypothesis is repugnant, or who consider 
this explanation inadmissible, will reject in toto the 
facts themselves, refusing to examine them, or declar- 
ing them a priori impossible, illusory, inexistent. 

Is this not what happened to the king's commission- 
ers who were charged with officially controlling the as- 
sertions of Mesmer? 

We find at the present time a similar confusion, with 
the same regrettable consequences, regarding spiritism. 
This word, also, is used wrongly to designate two very 
different things, wholly distinct from each other ; ( i ) 
a certain ensemble of facts, which we have called spirit- 
istic or spiritoidal; (2) a doctrine proposed by a par- 
ticular group of people in order to explain these facts. 

To admit the existence of spiritoidal facts, at least 
as objects of possible study, is not by any means to 
affirm the truth of this doctrine. Nevertheless, those 
who reject the doctrine believe themselves ipso facto 
authorized to deny the facts. 

Similarly, the term animal magnetism is wrongly 
used to designate, at one and the same time : ( i ) the 
facts in which a sort of action of the human organism 
at a distance seems to be manifested, and which we 
have named magnetoidal without pretending in any 
way to prejudge their nature; (2) a theory, that of 
Mesmer and his disciples, which is presented to us as a 
systematic explanation of these facts, more or less 
assimilated to the phenomena of physical magnetism. 

Could not the facts of animal magnetism be ad- 



AN UNKNOWN FORCE 147 

mitted, at least as objects of possible study, without 
being obliged at the same time to profess the doctrine 
of animal magnetism, either under the form that Mes- 
mer gave it, or under any other particular form? 

Perhaps the best way to remedy this confusion would 
be to renounce absolutely this traditional term animal 
magnetism and to employ wholly new words, neolog- 
isms taken from the Greek or the Latin. Braid and 
Bernheim did this in grouping under the names hypno- 
tism and suggestion the phenomena described by them 
and which they considered — rightly or wrongly — as 
really different from those of animal magnetism. 

Unfortunately, it is very difficult to overcome usage 
and tradition; and, indeed, few efforts have been made 
in this connection. The only ones that, to our knowl- 
edge, can be cited are those of Reichenbach, calling od 
or odyle the supposed agent of human radiation (ca- 
pable, moreover, of producing effects of the same kind 
outside of man and in all nature) ; and that of Profes- 
sor Thury (of Geneva) giving this same agent the 
name psychode. But these denominations remain con- 
fined to the works of their inventors. This is true, 
also, of the term ecteneique ^ (ectenic state, ectenic 
force) by which this same Professor Thury designated 
the state in which a human being can extend the limits 
of his action beyond his own organism, and the force 
which is developed in this state. 

Even though these words may have the advantage 

1 From the Greek word extension. An abbreviated form of the 
word, ecten, has been proposed, we believe — but without much more 
success — to designate the force itself, and ectenic to qualify all that is 
connected with this force. 



148 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE FUTURE 

of not involving any hypothesis as to the essential 
nature and the deep cause of the facts being considered, 
none of them has succeeded in supplanting in common 
usage the old name of animal magnetism. We have 
a proof of this in the title given by Barety to his great 
work: Le magnetisme animal etudie sous le nom de 
force neurique, where the new name, neuric force dares 
to introduce itself only under the shelter and patronage 
of animal magnetism, in spite of all the discredit 
attached to it in scientific circles. 

It seems very necessary, however, to break with all 
associations of ideas which this expression animal 
magnetism carries. 

It IS not doubted that the facts called animal mag- 
netism present, at first sight, singular analogies with 
the facts of physical magnetism. But these analogies 
can be only apparent and superficial; it is very possible 
that a more thorough study would cause us to con- 
clude that there is no essential resemblance between 
these tw^o orders of facts. Moreover, the conception 
that we form of physical magnetism is itself pro- 
visional and largely hypothetical. It already has 
changed many times, and undoubtedly will continue to 
change as science progresses. 

Is it rational to link thus, by giving them the same 
denomination, two orders of phenomena which cannot 
have in reality anything in common, as if it were pre- 
tended to explain each of them by one and the same 
principle ? 

We would suggest replacing, or at least adding to, 
the term animal magnetism, by a new expression. 
This should be free from all preconceived idea, by a 



AN UNKNOWN FORCE 149 

neologism taken from the Greek, alas! (but how can 
we do otherwise?) and which means nothing more than 
" human radiation '* or " vital radiation." 

In these conditions, the word hiactinlsm is presented 
to our mind; for it means exactly *' radiation of life," 
from two Greek words, iSto? life, and a/cn? ray.^ 

" Biactinism " could be used, then, to define the 
ensemble of facts when there is manifested in living 
beings, and particularly in human beings, a radiating 
influence, a radio-active energy, susceptible of being 
exercised at a distance over other animate beings, or 
even upon inanimate objects. 

Observation and experimentation alone can enable 
us to know by progressive steps the different properties 
of this energy, the different effects of this influence. 
Meanwhile, however, it can be said now that they 
present close analogies to those of the natural radiating 
forces already known: heat, light, electricity, magnet- 
ism. 

Until further researches are made, biactinism must 
be considered as constituting a special order of facts, 
to be studied in itself, and of which the rapports with 
the other orders of natural facts must not be prejudged 
in virtue of a priori conceptions, but determined experi- 
mentally, in proportion to the progress of their 
study. 

2 Perhaps the word zoactinism might be more correct ; for, as has 
been remarked, the Greek iSi'os means, rather, moral and social life; 
organic life, an attribute common to animals and vegetables, would 
be rather designated by the word ^^77, But usage has already pre- 
vailed, in all modern languages, in employing the root bio in the 
second sense — as proved by the words biology, aerobia, microbe, etc., 
which incontestably refer to organic life. 



150 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE FUTURE 

II 

The first question that arises regarding biactinism is, 
very evidently, the following: 

Does biactinism exist? Is it really true that a living 
organism generates — in conditions which permit it to 
he established with certainty — a radiating force ca- 
pable of acting even at a distance upon another organ- 
ism? 

We have indicated elsewhere ^ the reasons which 
necessitate an affirmative answer to this question, at the 
same time showing the processes and the methods by 
which the effects and the conditions of biactinism can 
be studied scientifically. We shall review these, how- 
ever, in the present chapter. 

Let us consider, for a moment, that the question is 
answered in the affirmative. What shall we under- 
stand by " radiation of an organism operating at a 
distance " ? For biactinism, or animal magnetism, 
would consist in that, according to the definition we 
have given. 

From the strictly metaphysical point of view, it can 
undoubtedly be claimed, with Leibnitz and the author 
of a recent work,* that the notions of radiation and of 
action at a distance are illusory, entirely relative to 
false appearances, and that. In reality, there Is neither 
action nor radiation. 

" Every time," says the author of Uunivers-organ- 
isme, " that a body seems to act at a distance, It is 
because there exists, between the body which acts and 
the body which reacts, an intermediary agent which 

^ Our Hidden Forces. 

^ L'unwers-organisme, Bardonnet. {Re<vue philosophique, 1914.) 



AN UNKNOWN FORCE 151 

transmits the excitation, having first undergone it itself. 
This intermediary, in acoustic phenomena, we know, is 
the atmospheric air ; but it exists also in all other orders 
of phenomena ; and it is, then, cosmic matter." 

Properly speaking, the force does not radiate, is not 
transmitted; or, as Leibnitz said, there is no really 
transitive action, no action which passes from one sub- 
ject to another as a rider would jump from one horse 
to another because " force is the act, and the act is 
necessarily inherent to its agent. An act cannot go 
far from its agent." 

Let us note that what is said here of " force " can 
equally be said of " motion," of " excitation," of " sen- 
sation," of " thought." Taken literally, such as ex- 
pression as this : " motion is transmitted from one body 
to another," is nonsensical, an absurdity. The motion 
of a body is not separated, cannot be separated, from 
that body Itself : it is a state of the body, it is the body 
itself In the state of motion. Thus the motion of a 
first body A cannot become the motion of a second 
body B ; but B can be brought to move as A, and because 
A is already in a state of motion. 

There is not, in that, a single movement passing from 
one subject to another, but two movements produced 
successively, one because of the other, in two different 
subjects. If it be understood otherwise, the movement 
then becomes a third body, a sort of invisible sub- 
stance. 

In the same way, it is erroneous to speak of an ex- 
citation as being transmitted. Following and because 
of a first excitation In the subject A, a second excitation, 
more or less similar, is produced in B; and so forth. 



152 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE FUTURE 

But it is not one excitation, abstract, impersonal, anony- 
mous, which the subjects pass to each other in some 
way from hand to hand. 

Similarly, also, when we say that a nerve transmits a 
sensation, we must no more take this expression liter- 
ally than when we say that the telegraph transmits a 
despatch or that a letter transmits to us the thought of 
its author. The sensation of pricking is not an un- 
known something starting from the needle-point, pro- 
ceeding along a nerve, entering the brain and then the 
consciousness of the individual. It is a series of dis- 
tinct states, specifically different from one another, 
which follow in a certain order and of which each is, 
so to speak, the promoter, the excitator of the one that 
follows it. 

All this is very true; but It is true also that in prac- 
tise there is no serious disadvantage in employing the 
language of appearances, so long as one is not led 
astray by so doing. Astronomy itself, which well 
knows that the sun does not rotate round the earth, 
does not hesitate to speak, in everyday language, of the 
rising and the setting of the sun. 

Therefore those very savants who raise objections 
against the radiation of a force and its action at a dis- 
tance, end by declaring that " evidently, on the whole, 
things happen more or less as if cosmic matter does not 
exist and as If the force radiates at a distance." This 
is why, undoubtedly, led by the force of habit, they 
themselves employ expressions which they denounce, 
and speak freely of transmitted excitation.^ 

^ " Our peripheric nerves end at the nerve centers, and every time 
they are excited they have nothing so urgent as the transmission of their 



AN UNKNOWN FORCE 153 

These expressions, precisely because they present 
things en gros^ have the advantage of a brevity and a 
convenience that would be difficult to obtain with more 
precise and exact words. 

Let us say, however, that the objection which we 
oppose here is less against the conception of biactlnism 
or animal magnetism in particular than against all the 
actual conceptions of physics, or rather against the 
vocabulary which serves to express them.^ It appears 
very doubtful to us that the great majority of physicists, 
when they speak of action at a distance, of force which 
radiates or is disseminated or transmitted from one 
body to another, etc., understand all these expressions 
in a literal sense and see in them anything but short- 
ened forms, more or less metaphoric and in any case 
convenient practically, to represent realities that they 
know to be appreciably different from that representa- 
tion. 

A precedent is created when saying to a contem- 
porary physicist that there is no action at a distance in 
the proper meaning of the term; for he knows very 
well that all action between two bodies distant from 
each other, whether it be a question of heat, light, or 
electricity, suppose an intermediary; and It Is this inter- 
mediary which is designated by the name of etheric 
ambient or cosmic ether. 

To call It cosmic matter Is but to add one more name 
to all those It has received since the time of Descartes, 

excitation to the center to which they are bound; this, in its turn, 
transmits it to the others and in particular to the 'self.'" — Bardonnet. 
^ " This conception of an animal magnetism which frees itself from 
the individual and radiates imitates the classical conceptions of force; 
but it is false here as in physics." — Bardonnet. 



154 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE FUTURE 

who appears to have had the first idea of it when he 
called it subtle matter!^ 

It would be absurd to pretend that, when certain of 
our contemporaries speak of heat, light, electricity, or 
animal magnetism as circulating and radiating forces, 
they really conceive each of these forces as being " a 
quintesssence, a fluid, an imponderable element, capable 
of circulating, of being discharged, and arrested " as 
" a changeable principle, conductlble, freed, radiating, 
rarefied or accumulated; stored, concentrated, trans- 
formed," etc. 

We should then distinguish in all description or ex- 
pression of natural facts, that which Is essential and 
that which is accessory: the true rapports of the phe- 
nomena and the more or less Imperfect Images by which 
we represent them In our minds. And we should un- 
derstand that there Is not an irremediable Inconvenience 
in employing this language of Images, provided we can 
always Interpret it in the language of true rapports, 
when necessary to do so. 

It is the same conclusion which Is reached by Bardon- 
net when he says : 

■^ It is by the movement of subtle matter that Descartes explains not 
only all the particularities of fire (light and heat) and of the magnet, 
but also " an infinity of effects altogether rare and marvelous," and 
especially those which are designated to-day under the name of psy- 
chical phenomena, '* as the wounds of a dead person can be made to 
bleed when the murderer is approaching; to stir the imagination of 
those who sleep, or even also of those who are awake, and to give them 
thoughts which inform them of things happening far from them and 
make them feel the great afflictions or the great joys of an intimate 
friend, the bad designs of an assassin, and similar things." This curi- 
ous passage from Principes de la philosophie shows well that Descartes 
had not disdained initiation in the sciences called occult, as he reveals 
in the first part of Discours de la methode. 



AN UNKNOWN FORCE ijj 

" The doctrine of animal magnetism is, then, false in 
that it affirms a magnetism, that is to say a principle 
which is freed and propagated outside of the individ- 
ual; but true in that it affirms an exterior action, a 
physical influence, of the operator." Farther on he 
says: "The dispute among suggestionists, mesmer- 
ists, and hypnotists, can be understood. In reality, it 
is the mesmerists who are right; at least in that which 
they affirm a physical influence out of the ordinary. 
This physical influence consists not in animal magnet- 
ism but in another method of excitation." 

One can well see, from this last passage, that the 
whole difficulty here comes from the associations of 
ideas inseparably attached to the traditional term 
" animal magnetism," even though this term essen- 
tially designates for us only a " method of excitation " 
which, instead of employing, as do suggestion and hyp- 
notism, the ordinary senses, employs those of a special 
sensibility, the sensibility to certain excitations of ether- 
ic or cosmic matter. 

The difference between our doctrine and that which 
we oppose is but that of a word. 

It Is necessary for us to recognize that a doctrine or 
an hypothesis, such as that of animal magnetism, can be 
defined only by comparison with other doctrines or 
hypotheses which are found, so to speak, in concurrence 
with it and contradict it upon certain points where re- 
ciprocally it contradicts them. 

Perhaps this was not so In the time of Mesmer and 
Puysegur, or even of Deleuze and Du Potet. But ac- 
tually that which Is essential, uniquely essential. In the 
hypothesis of animal magnetism Is that by which this 



156 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE FUTURE 

hypothesis is opposed to those of suggestion and hyp- 
notism; all the rest is accessory and negligible. 

The doctrines of suggestion and of hypnotism agree 
in placing exclusively in the physical and psychological 
state of the subject the necessary and sufficient reason 
of all the parapsychic phenomena and in refusing to 
acknowledge all real and direct action of the operator. 
The doctrine of animal magnetism or biactinism con- 
sists, above all, in attributing to the operator, to his 
personality, to his own action, an importance at least 
equal to that of the subject in the production of a cer- 
tain number of parapsychic phenomena : viz., all those 
which rightfully would not appear to be explicable by 
the sole indications of hypnotism and suggestion. 

The partizans of suggestion could claim, it is true, 
that they recognize this action of the operator; for it is 
the word or the gesture of the suggestioner which is, 
according to them, the cause of all effects observed. 
But any such action is of a moral or social order : it has 
nothing to do with physiology, nothing to do with 
physics. It is, moreover indirect, in that it is created 
to arouse an idea in the mind of the subject, and it is 
the idea which is the true cause. Suppress the inter- 
vention of the operator and create the idea in any 
other way whatsoever: the phenomenon will not con- 
tinue ^ much less he produced. 

Entirely on the contrary, in the hypothesis of biac- 
tinism, the operator influences the subject by a special 
action, wholly independent of the word and the gesture, 
an action of a physiological and physical order, al- 
though all psychological element may not necessarily 
be excluded. 



AN UNKNOWN FORCE 157 

Evidently, this hypothesis has the disadvantage of 
introducing an unknown quantity in the problem: i.e., 
the nature, not yet fully determined, of this special 
action attributed to the operator. But it Is not a ques- 
tion, at the moment, of criticizing It, of weighing it. 
The question is merely that of an exact conception and 
understanding of it. True or false, it consists in be- 
lieving that certain parapsychic phenomena are a func- 
tion not only of a special physical and psychological 
state of the subject, but also of a special physical and 
psychological state of the operator. 

To affirm this Is to affirm animal magnetism, by 
whatever name It may be called, and in whatever way it 
may be imagined In detail ; to deny It is to deny animal 
magnetism. Nothing that is added to this funda- 
mental postulate can, at least for the moment, be con- 
sidered as essential. 

Ill 

Does this mean that It Is useless to try to obtain a 
less vague and less abstract Idea of this action sui 
generis that the operator is supposed to exert upon the 
subject, where it determines certain parapsychic effects? 

On the contrary, the advantage of this hypothesis Is 
that It opens to us a vast field of researches, whose aim 
is precisely to determine more and more the unknown 
which surrounds It. 

But this progressive determination must be made 
by observation and experimentation, not by imagina- 
tion and reasoning only; and the results thus obtained 
gradually must always remain subject to revision and 
correction, as all that which comes under the experi- 
mental method. 



158 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE FUTURE 

It is, then, natural and inevitable that those who ad- 
mit of a biomagnetic or biactinic action because of cer- 
tain facts observed by them, endeavor to represent it 
more or less concretely from what they know of these 
facts, without concealing the fact that this representa- 
tion really comprises the artificial and provisional. It 
is thus that they are brought to seek the analogies that 
any such action can present with other actions or forces 
already known : on the one hand with the nerve force, 
on the other hand with the forces called radiating and 
circulating — heat, light, electricity, magnetism, etc. 

It does not seem possible to deny the existence of the 
nerve force; hut it is very necessary to acknowledge 
that its nature is thoroughly unknown to us. We know 
its principal effects ; we know that it is the agent which 
transmits to the nerve centers the excitations coming 
from the periphery and gives birth to the sensations. 
It is this also which transmits to the muscles the or- 
ders of the Will, and determines the movements of the 
exterior organs. It is this, too, which excites and 
regulates the different vital functions : respiration, cir- 
culation, assimilation, and catabolism. But we do not 
know what constitutes it. The greater part of the time 
it is believed to be like galvanic electricity, as a force 
which circulates in its conductors between the centers or 
focuses where it would be accumulated and condensed ; 
but one must appreciate that this is only a rough sup- 
position, and that it may be very far from the reality. 

Be this as it may, if this force be supposed capable, 
under certain conditions, of acting beyond the limits of 
the organism in which it is, and of working thus a sort 
of transfusion or of communication of sensitiveness, of 




INDUCING SOMNAMBULISM 



At the time of the experiment, when this photograph was taken, 
one of the assistants went into an even deeper state of sleep, en- 
tirely through sympathy. 



AN UNKNOWN FORCE 159 

will, of vitality, between two different organisms, a con- 
ception of the biactinic force can be gained, which sums 
up the principal facts upon which is based the affirma- 
tion of those who believe in its reality. 

This force would be, then, the nerve force radiating 
from one organism to another, circulating from one 
organism to another. 

But our conception of the nerve force is itself very 
vague, very indeterminate, and the only means we have 
of making it more precise is to compare it to physical 
forces to which it presents certain analogies, princi- 
pally electricity. Hence there is not, perhaps, great 
inconvenience - — there may even be some advantage — 
in trying to conceive the biactinic force in the light of 
what we know of its analogies to physical forces, dis- 
regarding all speculation upon nerve energy or nerve 
force. 

Considered from this viewpoint — which brings to 
mind that of the early partizans of animal magnetism 
— the biactinic force can be regarded, if not as a form 
of electricity or of magnetism, at least as an electroidal 
or magnetoidal force, the effects and laws of which 
are comparable, mutatis mutandis, to those of the 
modes of universal energy. One will then be justified 
in speaking to his subject of conductibility, of polarity, 
wholly as if it were a question of electrical or magnetic 
phenomena. 

It goes without saying that the idea which will be 
gained of the biactinic force will itself undergo varia- 
tions corresponding to those of the general conception 
of electricity and magnetism; and it is this which takes 
place historically. For example, from the time when 



i6o THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE FUTURE 

physicists compared electricity to a fluid, the mesmer- 
ists attributed equally to a fluid the effects produced by 
passes, the gaze, etc. At the present time it is not a 
question of fluid but of vibrations, undulations, etc. It 
is, therefore, a phraseology, or, if we may be per- 
mitted this expression, an idealogy, of the same kind, 
that tends more and more to be applied to biactinic 
phenomena. If in the future a new and wholly differ- 
ent conception of electricity must be imposed upon the 
generality of scientists, it will not fail to model to its 
image the conception of this particular order of phe- 
nomena. 

IV 

The questions we have examined in this chapter up 
to the present point are relative to words and ideas 
rather than to the things themselves. They ask us 
how we shall name and represent action at a distance, 
the radiation of one nervous system upon another nerv- 
ous system, supposing any such action to be possible 
(and we have shown that there is not, a priori, any 
impossibility in conceiving such an action) . But the 
fundamental question remains : 

Does hiactinism exist? 

And this question can be answered only by facts. 
It is a question of proving — not by definitions and 
reasonings, but by observations and especially by ex- 
perimentation — the reality of nervous radiations, in 
conditions which leave no room for doubt. 

In Our Hidden Forces we described the facts which 
convinced us of this reality. We do not hesitate to 
say that any one earnestly bent on experimentation, 



AN UNKNOWN FORCE 161 

while observing the precautions indicated, possessing 
all the patience to conduct his researches to finality, 
even if his first results appears to be negative, will 
inevitably be convinced. 

The great difficulty lies in the possibility of confusing 
the effects of suggestion with those of animal magnet- 
ism. This, it will be remembered, was the objection 
which the king's commissioners made to Mesmer and 
his partizans when they attributed to imagination all 
the phenomena they had witnessed. 

However, this difficulty is not insurmountable. It 
may be overcome, in experimenting, by following rigor- 
ously some very simple rules.^ 

Even in the time of Mesmer certain observers — 
among them, Antoine-Laurent de Jussieu — had been 
able to constate cases of biactinic action entirely free 
from all suggestive or imaginative element. In a book 
written at that time we have found the description of 
a case of this kind which perhaps is worthy of being 
quoted here : 

Toward the end of November, 1778, I invited Dr. Mesmer 
to dinner with me in a house where all, including myself, im- 
patiently awaited his productions of magnetic phenomena. . . . 
But here is what happened after dinner. I attest it as a fact 
which I followed with the utmost care, and which the witnesses 
studied with all the distrust imaginable. 

The company assembled in the drawing-room. Dr. Mesmer 
touched successively many persons. Some of them, especially, 
had extremely irritable nerves; but none proved sufficiently sen- 
sitive to be susceptible to animal magnetism. 

8 See Our Hidden Forces, Chapter VI, " New Experimental Method 
in Hypnology." 



i62 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE FUTURE 

The tutor of the children in this house — a man of strong 
temperament, robust, well constituted, not in the least credulous, 
and strengthened in his incredulity by the unsuccessful attempts 
which he had witnessed — complained after a while of a pain 
in his shoulders. He offered himself to Dr. Mesmer as the 
subject for a last attempt, though strongly persuaded that the 
magnetism would not act any more upon him than it did upon 
those whom Mesmer had touched. To tell the truth, it must 
be admitted that it was not a new proof that he desired, but a 
new occasion to deride this practise. 

This last attempt, however, turned wholly to the glory of 
Dr. Mesmer. 

Perceiving, undoubtedly, the motive which brought this new 
actor upon the scene, and wishing to give him the most con- 
vincing proof of his skill, Mesmer refused to touch him but 
instead directed his magnetic power against the subject without 
contact and at a certain distance. 

The experiment at once became more unusual and more inter- 
esting. The subject stood with his back toward Mesmer, who 
presented his finger at a distance of eight feet. As long as the 
finger remained fixed and motionless, pointing in the direction 
and held at the height of the subject's shoulders, he did not 
feel any effect; and the questions which Mesmer reiterated for 
the space of about two minutes only strengthened the subject 
more and more in his incredulity. 

Things were at this stage when Mesmer signaled to the assist- 
ants to fix their attention more closely upon the subject of this 
singular experiment. 

Then he moved his finger up and down, giving it at the 
same time a slight circulatory motion. Instantly the subject 
said that he felt a shivering sensation in the upper part of 
his back. 

Dr. Mesmer suspended his operation. The subject turned 
around, and attributed the effect which he had felt to the 
action of the heat-register before which he had been standing. 



AN UNKNOWN FORCE 163 

The experiment was begun again, with the subject this time 
far away from the register. Standing firmly upon his feet, he 
presented his back to Mesmer. The same movements, but 
more energetic, more determined, on the part of Dr. Mesmer, 
took place ; and immediately the same sensations in the subject's 
back, but less equivocal, more appreciable, were noted. 

The subject was now thoroughly convinced of the reality 
of these effects, and said that he could describe them no better 
than by comparing them to a stream of hot water circulating in 
the veins of his shoulders and all the upper part of his back. 

This experiment was repeated two or three times, with the 
same success ; until the effect became so strong that the subject 
refused to lend himself to further experimentation. Once 
more, however, the experiment was performed. The master of 
the house seized the tutor by one arm and I by the other, and 
Dr. Mesmer proceeded with his passes. But the subject broke 
violently from our hands, protesting that the heat which he felt 
was unbearable. A moment afterward he exclaimed that he 
was covered with perspiration over the part that had been 
experimented upon. Placing my hand there — as did all the 
company — I found that his shirt actually was soaking wet at 
the back near the shoulders. 

After a few minutes of rest, Mesmer faced the subject and 
presented two fingers, one of each hand, to the two lateral parts 
of his chest. The subject felt in these places, and even in the 
whole extent of his chest, a similar sensation but not quite so 
strong as before. Soon an uncomfortable heat rose to his 
face and we saw his forehead entirely covered with perspiration. 

Being impressed more and more by these phenomena, the 
subject was very willing to lend himself to any new experiment 
which Mesmer wished to make upon him. He presented the 
index finger and thumb of each hand, the other fingers remain- 
ing folded in his palm ; and Mesmer presented to him the same 
fingers, very close to his own but without touching them. The 



i64 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE FUTURE 

subject first began to feel a slight vibration, a tickling sensation, 
in the palms of his hands. This tickling was followed by a 
numbness. Heat succeeded immediately, and his hands were 
covered with perspiration — not, however, as abundant as that 
which we had seen on his forehead, and also less than that which 
had been on his shoulders. 

Such are the effects which I myself have witnessed, without 
having perceived or having been able to suspect any mechanical 
cause which had produced them. 

His incredulity being wholly vanquished by these phenomena, 
and having recovered from the surprise which they had caused 
him, the new convert went the following morning to Dr. Mes- 
mer. There he experienced again the same sensations. He 
assures me of this in a letter dated December 2, in which he says : 

My pain in the shoulder increased considerably until 
Mesmer directed upon me the action of his / know not 
what. I have felt a heat comparable to that of steam from 
boiling water; prompt and rapid twitchings in the mem- 
bers ; slight spasms and shivering in the fingers. When he 
withdrew his hand, it seemed to me that a very cold air 
blew into mine. I have repeated this experiment more 
than twenty times. 

The author of this account concludes with these very 
sensible words : 

In the meantime do not let us be so skeptical as to reject 
the phenomena that we cannot undersand, but let us be more 
circumspect about the cause of a multitude of effects, the appar- 
ent marvels of which are due wholly to our ignorance. 

We ourselves have observed, more than once, facts 
similar to those just related. A certain number of 
them are described in Our Hidden Forces, More re- 



AN UNKNOWN FORCE 165 

cently still, we have been able to ascertain that the re- 
ceptivity of subjects, in respect to the biactinic action, 
is not necessarily proportioned to their suggestibility or 
their hypnotic sensibility. 

Take, for example, the case of a boy of sixteen, who 
was employed in a factory. He had never seen any 
experiments of the kind, and was almost completely 
ignorant of matters of this nature. He consented, out 
of mere curiosity, to lend himself to an experiment of 
hypnotization. He reacted quickly and with much 
force to the process of Moutin, and to that test which 
we have indicated as a variation of Moutin's method.® 
Submitted to the action of the passes and the gaze, he 
fell into a state of torpor, or, rather, of manifest pas- 
sivity. But this state was evidently very superficial, 
for he suddenly opened his eyes and returned to his 
ordinary state. His cutaneous sensibility remained 
intact; although he was suggested that he felt nothing, 
he continued to feel all contacts. Suggestions of heat 
and cold, even though repeated with insistence, pro- 
duced no effect. In short, he appeared very little sug- 
gestible. Hypnotism (the process of Braid) gave no 
appreciable result. There was no amnesia on waking 
— if it can be called waking, from a state which had 
no resemblance to sleep. 

However, certain signs made me suspect that the sub- 
ject was particularly sensible to biactinic action. 
Therefore, in a second seance, after he was placed in a 
state of torpor, with his eyes closed, I tried to verify 
my conjecture. Seated in front of the subject, and 
talking all the while to a friend who accompanied me, 

9 Page 88. 



i66 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE FUTURE 

I slid my right foot slowly over the carpet, the toe 
pointing toward the subject's left foot. I noticed im- 
mediately a slight movement, a sort of tremor. In his 
foot. Again I slid my right foot, very slowly and 
without noise; this time th'e subject's foot glided visibly 
toward mine. Then the gliding — which responded 
each time to that of my foot — became so marked that 
my friend's attention was attracted to it. Until then 
he had noticed nothing, but now he regarded with sur- 
prise this foot which was advanced by jerks oyer the 
carpet and ended by leaving the ground and raising 
Itself In the air, as If It were linked to mine — which 
was raised at the same time — by an Invisible thread. 

When the subject was questioned, he declared that 
he had felt In his foot a sort of attraction which had 
forced him to move it. 

I then placed my right hand at eight or ten centi- 
meters from his left hand while It lay, relaxed and mo- 
tionless, over the arm of the chair. After a few sec- 
onds of presentation I drew my hand slowly away from 
his, repeating this movement several times. I ob- 
served, first, a slight tremor of the subject's hand, which 
gradually left its original position, reproducing each 
time the movements of my hand. I then made — 
always at a distance — the reverse movements; his 
hand returned slowly to Its former position over the 
arm of the chair. Quickly I transferred my action 
from the left side to the right; the subject's right hand 
responded to the silent appeals of my hand exactly 
as his left hand had done. 

In brief, this subject, suggestible and hypnotlzable to 
a very small degree only, behaved as if his nervous sys- 



AN UNKNOWN FORCE 167 

tern were, so far as voluntary movements are con- 
cerned, in communication with my own. 

It is evident that all these experiments should be 
repeated in conditions which would permit of their 
being rendered more precise and more varied. But 
they do not depend always upon the desire of the experi- 
menter, for he cannot dispose of persons as he may 
dispose of material objects in experiments in physics 
or chemistry, or even of animals in experiments in 
physiology. 

It would be interesting, if the occasion should present 
itself, to find if a subject sensitive to the biactinic action 
of a certain operator is equally sensitive to that of all 
other individuals; to ascertain the circumstances w^hich 
increase or diminish the efficacy of this action; to learn 
if it can be exercised through intermediaries, etc. 

All these researches have been undertaken by us; and 
if we have not been able to continue them, as we should 
have wished to do, others undoubtedly will succeed, 
when scientists become thoroughly convinced that it is 
a question of real facts, submitted, as all other facts of 
nature are, to general and constant laws, and entirely 
amenable to the experimental method. 

Up to the present time, however, those among our 
contemporaries who have had the courage to pursue 
this study have been only too rare. Outside of the 
school of the early mesmerists — who, however, ignore 
or deny the disturbing and simulating intervention of 
suggestion in the greater part of the parapsychic phe- 
nomena — we see few among the more recent observ- 
ers, beyond Dr. Barety, who submitted biactinism to a 
systematic investigation, the results of which were pub- 



l68 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE FUTURE 

lished by him in 1887. ^ut even though Dr. Pierre 
Janet, speaking of Dr. Barety's book in the Revue 
philosophique (1888), commended it as a useful work 
in " calling attention to important phenomena which 
we have been too disposed to neglect," no scientist, to 
our knowledge, has thought it worth while to undertake 
the experiments, although their control was very easy; 
and so these " important phenomena " have continued 
to be neglected as before. 

We must make an exception, however, of a Swedish 
scientist, M. Sydney Alrutz, professor at the University 
of Epsal, who published (1914) in his reports of the 
Sixth Congress of Experimental Psychology, of Got- 
tingen, an interesting article entitled " Contribution to 
the Dynamism of the Nervous System," in which he 
gave the results of his personal researches. 

The problem which he proposed to solve experi- 
mentally was the same as that which we announced at 
the beginning of this chapter : 

Does the human organism really possess the prop- 
erty of radiating a magnetic influence capable of acting 
at a distance upon another human organism? 

" It is a question, above all else, of knowing," said 
Professor Alrutz, " if one nervous system can exert 
upon another nervous system a direct influence ; and if 
nervous systems are such that, even if isolated from 
each other, there can be established between them, in 
special conditions, any action at a distance." 

To solve this problem. Professor Alrutz employed 
the following method — which, it will be noticed, is 
analogous to that we have employed.^^ 

1^ Described in Our Hidden Forces, Chapter VI, " New Experimental 
Method in Hypnology." 



AN UNKNOWN FORCE 169 

The operator assures himself that it is impossible 
for the subject, placed in a light state of hypnosis, either 
to see anything or to know what happens about him. 
For this purpose a heavy cloth is thrown over the sub- 
ject's head, and if judged necessary his ears are 
stopped up. It is understood, of course, that no verbal 
suggestion is made. There is then placed above the 
subject's bare hand and forearm a glass plate of about 
five millimeters thickness, supported a few inches above 
the skin. The experimenter now makes with his right 
hand, as silently as possible, slow and regular passes 
(about twenty passes a minute) a short distance above 
the glass plate and without contact. These " descend- 
ing " passes are in a centrifugal direction — that is to 
say, they go from the articulation of the subject's elbow 
to the tips of his fingers. 

In this experiment the following phenomena are ob- 
served: 

The cutaneous sensibility is completely abolished,^^ 
although prior to this experiment — the subject being, 
however, in a state of hypnosis — his sensitiveness was 
a little above normal (hyperalgesia and light hyperes- 
thesia). As if by a sort of compensation, the sensi- 
tiveness Is distinctly augmented upon the parts corre- 
sponding to that experimented upon. 

The same effects are produced if the plate of glass be 
replaced by a plate of zinc, of copper, of lead, and of 
other metals, or by an alloy such as brass. On the 
contrary, with a sheet of cardboard, or a piece of wool, 
these substances have the effect of an Isolator, the plate 
acting more or less as a protector. 

11 The author omits, unfortunately, to say for how long a time. 



170 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE FUTURE 

If, now, above the skin rendered insensible by de- 
scending passes, ascending passes be made — that is, in 
the centripetal direction — whether with a glass or 
metal plate, the sensibility is reestablished, and its re- 
turn is accompanied by an uncomfortable sensation: the 
subject rubs the spot with his other hand and declares, 
spontaneously or upon interrogation, that " it pricks," 
and also, although later, that it feels hot or cold. 

These sensations correspond often to the excitations 
made during the preceding period of analgesia. For 
example, if during this period the anterior part of the 
phalanges be pricked with a needle, the subject does not 
feel the pricking sensation until later when his sensi- 
bility is restored. 

In a general way, the ascending passes have a posi- 
tive action upon the sensibility: they reestablish the sen- 
sibility when this has been abolished by a previous ac- 
tion, or augment it to the point of hyperesthesia when 
it was originally normal. The descending passes, on 
the contrary, have a negative action: they abolish the 
sensibility or bring it back to the normal state when it 
has been rendered hyperesthetic by a previous action. 

Certain substances, such as glass and different 
metals, are good conductors of the influence emanating 
from the passes; certain others, such as cardboard, 
wool, etc., intercept its passage. 

The presentation of the hand, motionless, above a 
part of the subject's body, always through a glass plate, 
produces, according to Professor Alrutz, different 
effects, depending upon whether the subject is in a 
state of superficial or deep hypnosis. 

In superficial hypnosis, at the end of a few seconds 



AN UNKNOWN FORCE 171 

the subject will feel heat, pricking, he will " feel electri- 
fied "; and if it is above the closed hand that the oper- 
ator is holding his extended hand, the subject stretches 
out his fingers, or at least shows strong tendency to 
do so. 

In deep hypnosis, the sensibility which was abolished 
is awakened in the place aimed at, and reacts to differ- 
ent cutaneous excitations; but in this place only, es- 
pecially if the time of the presentation be exactly 
measured. 

Exploration in motricity gives results analogous to 
those of researches in sensibility. 

If the operator directs his finger, at a few centi- 
meters* distance, toward the motor points — for ex- 
ample, toward the palmar region of the forearm — it 
determines an excitation of these points which cause 
a flection in the articulation of the phalanges, precisely 
as if they had been faintly excited by electric currents 
of induction. 

Finally, Professor Alrutz notes that other people 
than the hypnotizer can provoke the same effects if 
operating with the same subject, at least during the 
continuance of the hypnotic state; for "about twenty 
persons, psychologists, physiologists, physicians, physi- 
cists, etc., who have reproduced these experiments have 
completely succeeded and have obtained the same re- 
sults." 

I myself, in my personal experiments, have observed 
that other operators can Influence my subjects in vari- 
ous degrees; but I have observed also that certain 
operators did not possess this power, and succeeded In 
exerting It only by conduction : that Is to say, only after 



172 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE FUTURE 

being put in contact with myself. It seems that this 
fact has escaped the Swedish experimenter, perhaps 
because his attention has not been attracted in this 
direction. 

Besides, the details of the effects produced have not, 
perhaps, the importance that the author attributes to 
them; for, really, these effects vary to a great extent 
with the individuality or the state of the operator. It 
is necessary, therefore, to avoid the postulation into so 
many laws of the particularities observed in these di- 
verse experiments. It is only after long and patient 
researches that it will be possible to generalize with any 
certainty. 

But what is really important — since on this point 
all the results obtained by the different observers and 
experimenters coincide — is the fact that a human or- 
ganism radiated upon another organism, at a distance, 
and without the possible intervention of suggestion, an 
influence susceptible of provoking in this organism sen- 
sitive and motor reactions — and perhaps those of 
some other order, the modalities and the conditions of 
which remain to be determined by a series of later 
studies. 

And this fact itself is nothing more nor less than the 
reality of biactinism, or animal magnetism. 

V 

It would, however, be premature to consider this 
fact as definitely established for science, so long as the 
experiments which prove it have not been verified and 
repeated by a very great number of researches. Until 
then biactinism will remain, not a fact, but a,K hypothe- 



AN UNKNOWN FORCE 173 

sis, partaking of the fate of a great many scientific 
truths, which, before being universally accepted as such, 
were first recognized by a small number of men only, 
having undergone a somewhat prolonged period of 
negation and doubt. 

Yet a philosopher would undoubtedly have little 
trouble in demonstrating to us that in what most lay- 
men as well as scientists call a fact there enters an in- 
evitable part of interpretation and hypothesis. It is a 
fact, it will be said, that the earth turns round the sun, 
that heat expands material bodies, that the magnet 
attracts iron, etc. But if each of these facts be an- 
alyzed, it will be seen that it may be resolved into two 
very different kinds of elements: (i) phenomena di- 
rectly perceived by our senses, or, to go deeper, sensa- 
tions of which we are directly conscious; (2) concep- 
tions of our mind, conceptions of time, of space, of 
number, and especially of causality, by the aid of which 
we make the synthesis of these phenomena and give 
an objective signification and value to our sensations. 

Strictly speaking, only our sensations are facts; all 
the rest are interpretations, in which we believe because 
they have succeeded for us; having been more or less 
conjectural at the beginning, they have ended by becom- 
ing certainties. 

The distinction between the fact and the hypothesis 
has, then, theoretically, nothing absolute, and it is often 
by an Indefinite series of Imperceptible transitions that 
the former hypothesis Is finally transformed into a fact. 

In any case, the partlzans of blactlnism may tem- 
porarily make the following conclusions : 

There exist a great number of facts in which a 



174 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE FUTURE 

human organism appears to exert upon another or- 
ganism an influence where suggestion is certainly ex- 
eluded and which strongly resembles a radiation at a 
distance. These facts would become still more numer- 
ous if researchers would take the trouble to experiment. 
It is these facts of apparent biactinism which science 
must not reject a, priori with derision, but should sub- 
mit to an impartial and methodical investigation. 

In this investigation the hypothesis of " vital or 
nervous radiation " will certainly play a considerable 
part, as it is impossible to experiment usefully without 
the aid of a directing hypothesis ; but we do not claim 
any privilege for it, and all other hypotheses can and 
must be in concurrence with it. Of these adverse hy- 
potheses, the one that is most in favor at the present 
time is that of mental suggestion, or telepathy, which 
would better be named communication of thought. 

The English Society for Psychical Research has sys- 
tematically opposed to this the hypothesis of animal 
magnetism, of which it is, however, only a particular 
form.^2 

But it is very necessary to repeat that the compara- 
tive discussion of the different hypotheses must be ex- 
perimental and not simply dialectic. In other words, 
it will be a question of combining experiments in such 
way that all telepathic suggestion will be rigorously ex- 
cluded, leaving place for biactinic action solely. 

We shall return to this question in the following 
chapter, regarding the rapports of the communication 
of thought, or " diapsychism," with animal magnetism. 

12 See Our Hidden Forces, Chapter X, " The Relation of Telepathy 
to Human Magnetism." 



115 



CHAPTER X 



THE COMMUNICATION OF THOUGHT, OR 
" DIAPSYCHISM " 



I 

When we come to designate the phenomenon to be 
studied in this chapter, it is difficult to find a word that 
is free from all objection. For want of a better term, 
we shall for the moment employ the expression, " com- 
munication of thought." It is called also, *' transmis- 
sion of thought," " thought-transference," '* thought- 
reading," " divination or penetration of thought." 
But the term which the majority of our contemporaries 
seem to favor Is " mental suggestion " — even though 
this has the disadvantage of implying an Interpretation 
preconceived, and consequently hypothetical, of the 
phenomenon, thus comparing it without proof to or- 
dinary suggestion. 

At the risk of incurring the reproaches of all those 
who do not approve of neologisms, I propose to coin a 
word free from all connection with previous ideas : such 
as the word diapsychism^ which means, literally, " the 
passage from soul to soul," and so will suffice to desig- 
nate the transmission of a psychological state from one 
consciousness to another. 

The Marquis de Puysegur was one of the first to ob- 
serve a phenomenon of this nature. Having for the 
first time provoked artificial somnambulism in his sub- 

175 



176 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE FUTURE 

ject, Victor Vielet, he noticed that in that state the 
subject appeared to divine his thoughts even though 
unexpressed. " I do not have to speak," he wrote; " I 
think near him; he understands and answers." From 
that time during all the period that followed, and which 
may be called the period of the magnetizers or of ani- 
mal magnetism, allusions and descriptions in support 
of this fact are encountered very frequently. 

In a book too little known. Letters to a Candid In- 
quirer on Animal Magnetism^ William Gregory speaks 
explicitly of " thought-reading " and " sympathetic 
clairvoyance,'* and enumerates the different forms, of 
which he gives many interesting examples. He claims 
that he can sometimes produce the phenomenon spon- 
taneously, as in the case of the Swiss novelist, Zschokke, 
" who possessed at moments, spontaneously, the power 
to read In the minds of others the whole of their past 
history." 

Diapsychism Is an essentially diverse and multiform 
phenomenon; and in order to gain a just idea of It, It 
is Indispensable that it be studied under all its different 
aspects. Almost all those who have studied it have 
wrongfully limited their consideration to only one of 
Its many forms, and have been satisfied in the mean- 
time to give a general theory. This Is true. In par- 
ticular, of our contemporary savants, who, not being 
able to consider diapsychism as a series of experiments 
systematically and exclusively oriented by the hypothesis 
of suggestion, obstinately refuse to see in It more than 
that one particular form of suggestion called " mental 
suggestion." 

In reality, mental suggestion is but a particular form 



COMMUNICATION OF THOUGHT 177 

of a much more general phenomenon — diapsychlsm. 
Cuvier, in his Lecons d^anato^nie, defined animal mag- 
netism as " any communication whatsoever established 
between two nervous systems/' We might slightly 
modify this to define diapsychism : " Any communica- 
tion whatsoever established between two brains J' 

II 

Perhaps the form of intercerebral communication 
which is at the same time the most simple and the most 
complex is that of sensorial sympathy. This, under 
certain conditions yet unknown, reflects upon the sub- 
ject in one of several ways the sensations experienced 
by the hypnotizer. 

Dr. Pierre Janet says : 

Madame B. seems to feel the majority of sensations felt by 
the person who put her to sleep. She believed she herself was 
drinking and her throat went through the operation of swal- 
lowing when the operator drank. She always recognized ex- 
actly the substance I put in my mouth, and distinguished 
perfectly if I tasted salt or sugar. 

The phenomenon happened just the same if I was in another 
room. If, while I was in the other room, I pinched my arm 
or leg, she screamed and believed indignantly that the pinch was 
inflicted upon her own arm or leg. 

My brother, who assisted at these experiments and who 
exerted a singular influence over her, even so much that she 
thought he was I, tried something still more curious. While 
Madam B. was in that phase of lethargic somnambulism where 
she was susceptible to mental suggestion, he went into another 
room and burnt his arm. Madame B. screamed frightfully. 
She held her right arm just above the wrist, and complained 
of suffering intensely. I did not know at all the place where 



178 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE FUTURE 

my brother meant to burn himself; but it was just there, above 
the wrist. 

These identical facts already had been observed by 
the early mesmerists. W. Gregory, in his Letters on 
Animal Magnetism shows that " communication of the 
sensations " can be produced by the senses of taste, 
smell, and touch. He says : 

If the operator, or another person en rapport with the subject, 
puts into his mouth any food or drink whatsoever, the subject — 
in most cases — instantly goes through the pantomime of eating 
or drinking whatever the substance may be. If he is ques- 
tioned he declares that he is eating bread, or an orange, or 
candy, or that he is drinking water, or wine, or milk, or beer, 
or syrup, or lemonade, or an infusion of absynthe, or eau-de-vie 
— according to the substance which the operator at that mo- 
ment is tasting. When the thing tasted is bitter or disagree- 
able, the physiognomy of the subject shows it immediately. 
His eyes are closed, and as the mesmerist is behind him, he 
cannot see what is being tasted. I have seen and verified this 
fact in cases so numerous that I regard it as solidly es- 
tablished. . . . 

If a person en rapport with the subject smells a rose, the 
subject at once begins to inhale the delicious perfume; if he 
smells assafoetida, the subject expresses displeasure. . . . 

Whoever touches the person en rapport with the subject, is 
felt by the subject at exactly the same place. If the operator 
shakes the hand of any one, the subject instantly clasps an 
imaginary hand. If a pin-prick is inflicted upon the back of 
the mesmerist's hand, the subject withdraws his hand hastily, 
rubs the place, and complains vigorously of the pain he feels. 

Permit me to say that I myself have many times 
observed, under absolutely satisfactory conditions of 



COMMUNICATION OF THOUGHT 179 

control, that singular sympathy of the subject for the 
sensations of his hypnotlzer, principally the tactile sen- 
sations, in the course of experiments made with my 
subject, Ludovig S., whether in a hypnotic condition or 
in the waking state. 

It does not seem that this sympathy extends to the 
senses of sight and hearing. At least, we are not 
aware of the existence of any case thus far. 

It is well known that certain psychologists admit, 
independently of the five senses — which may be called 
the exterior senses — the existence of a sixth sense, the 
interior sense, or vital sense, which informs us of the 
state of our organism. It is by this sense, they say, 
that we are conscious of our body and are able to locate 
our various sensations; it is by this sense that we are 
more or less conscious of the action of our lungs, the 
circulation of our blood, the beating of our heart, the 
digestion In our stomach, etc. The sensations of hun- 
ger and thirst, the muscular sensations, those associated 
with the genital sense, those which accompany differ- 
ent maladies, and still many others belong to this sixth 
sense. One can see how extensive are Its domains. 
But it matters little whether it be considered a special 
sense or a simple dependence of touch, as an Inner 
touch; for these questions of denomination and classi- 
fication are of small importance. It is sufficient that 
the existence of this special group of sensations be 
recognized. 

But now we ask whether the sensations of this group 
admit also of diapsychism — that is to say, their com- 
munication from one consciousness to another. One 
cannot doubt the answer. 



i8o THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE FUTURE 

" Sympathy," says Gregory, who means by that word 
sensorial diapsychism, " extends often to the corporal 
state of the operator or of another person en rapport 
with the subject. The subject will feel and describe 
all pain or other ill experienced by the operator; and 
in some cases he will even feel or perceive intuitively 
a diseased state of certain organs in the operator's body 
— such as a headache, or a pain in his side, or difficult 
breathing; he will assert that the brain, or the kidneys, 
or the liver, or the stomach, or the heart, is deranged 
in a certain way — and only too often he is right." 

Gregory remarks that he is not speaking here of a 
'view of the state of these organs, which is a phenom- 
enon of another order — clairvoyance — but of an in- 
tuitive perception of the state of health or disease. 

The facts of this category, of which there are many 
examples, do not appear to have been studied except 
very incidentally. They should be subjected to me- 
thodical investigation. 

If it be asked by what mechanism sensorial diapsy- 
chism — the communication of sensations — is pro- 
duced, it seems that we must hesitate between two 
different conceptions or interpretations. Those who 
see in suggestion the essential type of all the parapsy- 
chic facts confuse, undoubtedly, the communication of 
sensation with the communication of thought; or, 
rather, it is by the former that they are forced to ex- 
plain the latter. In appearance, it may be said, it is 
the sensation of the hypnotizer which, by a sort of 
nervous repercussion, is transmitted directly to the 
hypnotized. 

For this it would be necessary that between the 



COMMUNICATION OF THOUGHT 181 

nervous systems of the operator and the subject there 
be a communication the possibihty of which seems to 
us, in the actual state of our physiological knowledge, 
very difficult to admit. The phenomenon is in reality 
much more complex. This is how it may be analyzed : 

First stage: The nervous system of the hypnotizer, 
under the influence of an exterior excitation, sends to 
his brain a sensation which is immediately transformed 
into an idea. 

Second stage: That idea Is transmitted by mental 
suggestion to the brain of the hypnotized. 

Third stage: The idea thus suggested (to the un- 
conscious or subconscious state) influences the nervous 
system of the hypnotized, which puts itself In the state 
of reproducing the first sensation. 

All happens as if the subject, divining the Impres- 
sions and the thoughts which took place in the mind 
of the operator, said: *' In that moment my hypno- 
tizer experienced a sensation of pricking, of burning, 
etc. ; then suggested to me, or I suggested to myself, to 
experience an identical sensation." 

From that conception sensorial diapsychism goes 
back to the basis of intellectual diapsychism: the com- 
munication of sensations is resolved Into the communica- 
tion of ideas. There remains then only the explana- 
tion of this communication between two brains ; at least. 
If this be not admitted as a fact, even though Inexplic- 
able. 

It goes without saying that the partlzans of blactln- 
Ism, or animal magnetism, will suggest an entirely 
different interpretation. According to them, the first 
and general fact is the reciprocal communication of 



1( 



182 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE FUTURE 

the nervous systems; the reciprocal communication of 
the brains being but a secondary fact, derived from 
the first. The_sub ject is directly _^ensjbl e to all the 
influences which come to Jiim, not only^rom the brain 
but from all parts of the nervous syst em of tfi eMJper- 
ator; and the transmission of the sensations is a phe- 
nomenon as direct as the transmission of the thoughts. 
It is then futile to suppose a mechanism as complicated 
as that of mental suggestion: in the subject as well as 
in the operator the brain plays but a secondary part: it 
receives, it does not act; the real actor is the nervous 
system, which, in both the operator and the subject, 
carries to the brain the necessary excitation. 

A schematic resume of the difference between the two 
conceptions would appear to be as follows : 

The first is a centrifugal phenomenon, since the 
initial cause of the sensation sympathetically felt by the 
subject starts from the brain of the operator, to be then 
carried through the brain of the subject to his nervous 
system. 

The second is a centripetal phenomenon, since, in 
both the operator and the subject, the point of de- 
parture of the sensation is in the nervous system and 
its point of arrival in the brain. 

Which of these two conceptions is closer to reality? 

This is impossible to determine by analyses and rea- 
sonings made in the abstract. It would be necessary, 
in solving the problem, to institute experiments of a pre- 
cise and delicate nature: real laboratory experiments, 
which, owing to the actual state of psychical researches, 
are practically unrealizable because of their lack of 
organization. We shall return to this problem later. 



COMMUNICATION OF THOUGHT 183 

Can there exist also a communication of the senti- 
ments, or of the emotions? 

W. Gregory says : " There Is also, but perhaps In 
a less degree than that of the senses, a cornrn unlty of 
emotion s. In cases of this kind, all mental emotion 
experienced by the operator, or by other persons en 
rapport with the subject, Is also experienced by him. 
I have not yet examined this phenomenon as minutely 
or as completely as the others, because of the difficulty 
of provoking at will a strong and decided emotion. 
In this case the observations are ordinarily accidental. 
Thus I have seen some subjects smile and laugh when 
they reached the magnetic state; and I have seen also 
— what very often has been described by others — 
subjects painfully affected by the nervousness or dis- 
traction of the operator." 

It Is also to this cause that Gregory attributes the 
accidental phenomena which are sometimes produced 
in the seances where " persons who have no experience 
or knowledge of animal magnetism try, for amusement 
or for curiosity, to produce magnetic effects." 

The principal objection against the existence of an 
emotional diapsychism Is that emotion, however slight 
it may be, Is manifested by very easily perceptible signs, 
and the sympathy of the subject for the operator would 
naturally belong In the realm of normal sympathy. 

In order to witness a diapsychic phenomenon it 
wouM^ejiecessary that the subject — either because of 
the removal of the operator to another room or be- 
cause of the Interposition of a screen — be absolutely 
incapable of being informed as to the emotional state 
of the operator ; or the operator himself may be capable 



i84 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE FUTURE 

of suppressing all exterior manifestations of the senti- 
ment he experiences, or of simulating the manifesta- 
tions of a contrary sentiment. 

There can be conceived still a third form of diapsy- 
chism, related to the two preceding. This is motor 
diapsychism, and consists in the communication of 
movements from one individual to another. I do not 
know, however, that this form has been effectively 
realized in the cases that have been observed. Per- 
sonally, I do not know of an example ; at least, those of 
which I have knowledge appear very ambiguous and 
very difficult to interpret. Even in the case of the fol- 
lowing experiment, which I have conducted more than 
once, it would be rash to draw any definite conclusions : 

Some one places his hand on the table, with fingers 
outstretched. The one who wishes to influence it 
stretches his hand in the same way, facing the first hand 
and about three or four centimeters from it, so that the 
thumb is opposite the thumb of the first hand and each 
of the fingers pointing at the other fingers. After a 
few minutes the operator slowly raises a finger and 
lets it drop, then raises it again and drops it again. If 
the subject is a sensitive, his corresponding finger will 
rise gradually and will reproduce precisely the move- 
ments of the operator. However, as the subject, who 
is not blindfolded and who moreover is in the waking 
state, sees all that happens, it would seem that this is 
no more than a phenomenon of ordinary suggestion 
— suggestion by gesture, which is similar to sugges- 
tion by word. 

Is it the same thing that happens as in that other ex- 
periment, described in the preceding chapter, where the 



COMMUNICATION OF THOUGHT 185 

subject reproduced, without seeing, the movements of 
the foot or the hand of the operator ? I have witnessed 
the phenomenon in very singular conditions. 

In a drawing-room filled with guests, while the others 
danced and amused themselves, two people were talk- 
ing together in the doorway. One of the two sus- 
pected that the other was a subject. Without letting 
him know his intentions, and while keeping up a lively 
conversation, he placed the toe of his foot directly 
opposite and about four or five centimeters from the 
toe of his companion's foot; then he slid his foot several 
times over the floor, to and fro. Soon the foot of the 
other began to slide also, at first imperceptibly, then 
with a rapidity Increasing to the point of compromising 
the equilibrium of the man thus being experimented 
upon without his knowledge, for he was unconscious of 
what he was doing. 

Must we see there a case of magnetic attraction or 
of mental suggestion? The answer remains uncertain. 
It would be less certain, perhaps, if the attraction had 
been involuntary and unconscious on the part of the 
operator as well as the subject; as, for example, if there 
were observed a motor communication of that nature 
produced spontaneously without their knowledge be- 
tween two individuals placed in two rooms sufficiently 
far apart. But really such a case, were it actually ob- 
served, would show us that diapsychism is related in- 
sensibly to biactinism and to a degree where it is im- 
possible to differentiate precisely the one from the 
other. 



i86 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE FUTURE 

III 

The most frequent form of diapsychism — that 
which is generally studied and referred to — is what 
we may call intellectual diapsychism. 

In intellectual diapsychism it is ideaSj or thoughts, 
which are transmitted from one individual to another, 
and not simply sensations, emotions, or movements; 
consequently, the preponderant role, from the physio- 
logical point of view, seems to belong not to a given 
nerve, or to the nervous system in general, but to the 
superior centers of the brain. It is this chiefly that is 
called " mental suggestion " and " thought-reading " ; 
and under these two names, and principally the former, 
it holds an important place in the theories of con- 
temporary psychlsts. 

Let us remark, first of all, that these two denomina- 
tions are not absolutely equivalent; for they represent 
two ensembles of facts sufficiently different to enable 
us to distinguish them. 

( I ) In the communication of thought, or " mental 
suggestion," the active pole, so to speak, is in the brain 
of the hypnotizer or magnetizer — the operator, in a 
word; and the passive pole is in that of the subject. 
The first, more or less voluntarily, transmits to and im- 
poses upon the second an idea. The phenomenon in 
this case is entirely similar to ordinary suggestion : the 
sole apparent difference — which is an important one 
— is that in ordinary suggestion the transmission is 
made by normal and known means of word or gesture, 
whereas here it is made in ways unknown and really 
abnormal. 



COMMUNICATION OF THOUGHT 187 

(2) In "thought-reading," on the contrary, it 
would seem as if the operator were exclusively engaged 
in thinking on his own account, without directing any 
action upon the subject; and that the subject himself, by 
an action sui generis, penetrates the operator's con- 
sciousness, divines its contents, and grasps his thoughts. 

Certainly, cases of a mixed nature may be encoun- 
tered wherein the effects proceed from the combined 
actions of operator and subject: the former endeavor- 
ing to project his thought, while the latter tries to 
attract and receive it. More often than not, however, 
each one of these two forms of intellectual diapsychism 
presents itself alone to the observation, and it would 
be well to consider them separately. To the first the 
name mental suggestion is especially applicable; to the 
second, thought-reading or thought-penetration would 
appear to apply more exactly. 

Whereas the early mesmerists saw in this second 
form a sort of clairvoyance which might be called psy- 
chological clairvoyance, in opposition to ordinary 
clairvoyance although related to one physical world, it 
is through the persistent and progressive study of sug- 
gestion that the modern disciples of the Schools of the 
Salpetriere and Nancy have been led first to suspect 
and then to admit the reality of the first form, which, 
consequently, they Invariably conceive as in the light 
of suggestion. A proof of this Is found In the follow- 
ing case reported by M. H. Beaunis and observed by 
him with Dr. Llebeault : 

The subject Is a young man, a good somnambulist, in good 
health, somewhat timid. He accompanied his cousin to the 



i88 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE FUTURE 

clinic of Dr. Liebeault, who was then treating her by hypnotism 
for certain nervous affections. 

Dr. Liebeault put the subject to sleep, saying during the 
comatic sleep: "When you wake, you will do the things 
which you will be ordered mentally to do by the persons 
present." 

I then wrote on a piece of paper these words: "Kiss your 
cousin/* This paper I showed to Dr. Liebeault and to the 
other persons present, telling them to read it with their eyes 
only, without pronouncing a single word or making any motion 
with their lips. Then J added : " When he wakes, think 
intensely of the act which he must execute ; but don't speak and 
don't make any sign that may suggest the action to him." 

The subject was awakened then, and we awaited the result 
of the experiment. 

Very soon after he woke we saw him laugh and hide his face 
in his hands; and that continued for some time without other 
result. 

I then asked him : " What is the matter ? " 

"Nothing." 

" Of whom are you thinking? " 

" You know," he answered. 

" Then," said I, " you must do something to the one we 
think of. If you do not wish to do it, at least tell us of what 
we are thinking." 

" No." 

Then I said to him : *' If you do not like to tell it aloud, 
whisper it in my ear." 

On going closer to him, he whispered to me : " To kiss my 
cousin." 

And so our first experiment in mental suggestion was a 
success. 

The experiments reported by Dr. Ochorowicz were 
of a similar nature: 



COMMUNICATION OF THOUGHT 189 

First Experiment 

The operator, seated about four meters from the subject and 
out of his sight, pretending to take notes, the head bent over, 
thinks : 

" Raise your right hand! ** 

Nothing happens the first minute ; at the second, agitation in 
the right hand; at the third, the agitation increases, the brows 
are puckered, the right hand is raised, then dropped. 

Second Experiment 

*' Get up and come to me! " 

First minute, agitation and puckering of brows. Second 
minute, the subject gets up slowly, with difficulty, and comes, 
the arms outstretched. 

Third Experiment 

" Get up, go to the piano, talie the box of matches, bring me 
one of them lighted, then return to your place! " 

The subject gets up and approaches the operator. 

"Go back!" 

He returns to his place. 

"Still farther back!" 

He goes forward toward the door. He stops and goes back 
to the middle of the room, from where he had started. He 
goes to the piano. 

" Lower ! Lower ! " 

His hand goes lower. 

"Take the box!" 

He takes it. 

"Come to me!" 

He comes. 

"Light one!" 

He takes out a match. 

"Light it!" 



igo THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE FUTURE 

He lights it and gives it to me. 
" Return to your place ! " 
He returns. 

Fourth Experiment 

" Go to your brother arid kiss him! " 

The subject gets up, advances toward the experimenter, then 
tovi^ard his brother. He feels for his brother's head but he does 
not touch it. He stops in front of him, hesitating; then he 
slov^^ly approaches and kisses him warmly on the forehead. 

The Idea to transmit or suggest in these different 
examples was that of an act relatively complex In spite 
of Its apparent simplicity; and that act, In sleep, con- 
sisted of a series of movements and muscular efforts. 
It was, in one way, a motor mental suggestion. That 
which m England Is called the " willing game '* — and 
sometimes " cumberlandism," from the name of the 
man who was first to conduct public exhibitions of these 
phenomena — is based on mental suggestion of this 
nature. 

A subject or medium, with eyes bandaged, executes a 
series of acts under the influence of the will of one of 
the assistants, who thinks constantly and intensely of 
what the subject must do, analyzing in his thoughts the 
different movements of which the series is composed. 
It Is true that if the experimenter holds the hand of the 
medium he may guide him unconsciously in many ways, 
and In this case the phenomenon cannot be considered 
one of a genuine communication of thought. But the 
interpretation becomes more difficult when the experi- 
ment is made without any contact between the operator 
and the subject. 



COMMUNICATION OF THOUGHT 191 

The idea to suggest mentally can also be that of a 
state which can be a sensation or an emotion. For ex- 
ample, it can be suggested mentally to a subject that he 
is very warm, very cold, that he feels pain in a certain 
part of his body, that he is frightened, that he is going 
to laugh, to cry, etc. ; but in general the state which 
experimenters most often try to produce in this way 
by mental suggestion is sleep — meaning magnetic or 
hypnotic sleep. 

The most interesting and most demonstrative ex- 
periments in this field are those which were made at 
Le Havre in 1885 by Dr. Gibert and Dr. Pierre Janet 
with the famous subject Leonie. The following de- 
tailed account of them was presented by Dr. Pierre 
Janet to the Society of Psycho-physiology and pub- 
lished in the Revue philosophique (1886) in two suc- 
cessive articles, the first bearing the modest title, " Note 
on Some Phenomena of Somnambulism"; the next, 
" Second Note on Sleep Provoked at a Distance and 
Mental Suggestion while in the State of Somnambu- 
lism." 

Leonie, or Madame B., subjected to hypnotic influ- 
ence in the ordinary way, falls first into a state very 
near to lethargy: flaccidity of the members, which, if 
raised, fall back with all their weight and without any 
movement; complete insensibility to all excitations, ex- 
cept only one : the person who put her to sleep can, 
to the exclusion of all other persons, provoke at will a 
partial or entire contraction by placing his extended 
hand a little distance from the subject's body; the con- 
traction ceases when he touches lightly the part affected. 
(This is a characteristic sign which will serve, in case 



^ 



192 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE FUTURE 

of necessity, to distinguish the £er^n jwho^utjhe aub- 
ject to sleep.) 

At the end of ten minutes, sometimes more, the 
sleep seems to become lighter, and somnambulism suc- 
ceeds the lethargic state. The subject is now very 
sensitive to all Impressions : she understands all that is 
said to her and answers intelligently, but she remains 
more strongly en rapport with the one who put her to 
sleep and who alone can wake her. 

Then again lethargy replaces the somnambulistic 
state. And these two states succeed each other thus 
alternately about every fifteen minutes as long as the 
sleep lasts. 

The process usually employed to put Leonie to sleep 
was the pressure of the hand, especially of the thumb. 
Nevertheless, " Dr. Gibert, while holding her hand one 
day to put her to sleep, being visibly distracted and 
thinking of other things, failed to obtain the desired 
results." Dr. Pierre Janet repeated this many times, 
but always with the same result, for sleep was not 
produced. Therefore, " to put Madame B. to sleep 
it was necessary to concentrate the thoughts strongly 
on that one act; and the more the thoughts of the 
operator were distracted, the more difficult the provo- 
cation of sleep." 

This influence of the operator's thoughts is so effi- 
cient that it can replace all others. 

*' We left Leonie sitting at the end of the room," 
says Dr. Janet; " then, without touching her and with- 
out speaking. Dr. Gibert, standing at the other end, 
concentrated his thoughts on making her go to sleep. 
After three minutes the lethargic sleep was produced." 



COMMUNICATION OF THOUGHT 193 

And the same experiment was repeated many times by 
Dr. Janet. 

But, it may be said, could not the presence of the 
experimenters, their attitude, their silence, provoke in 
the subject the idea of sleep and consequently sleep 
itself? 

" There were many times," says Dr. Janet, " when 
Dr. Gibert stood close to Leonie, in the same medita- 
tive attitude, in the sam_e silence, but without thinking 
of sleep; and sleep was^ not produced. On the other 
hand, as soon as, without changing my attitude, I men- 
tally ordered sleep, the eyes of the subject became fixed, 
and the lethargy began immediately." Furthermore, 
how can one explain that only that one of the two ex- 
perimenters who has provoked the sleep can provoke 
during the lethargy the characteristic phenomenon of 
contraction? 

In the preceding experiments the operator was in 
the same room with the subject. Now, however: 

Leaving Dr. Janet near Leonie, but without any knowledge 
of his intention, Dr. Gibert shut himself up in a nearby room, 
at a distance of six or seven meters, and there he mentally 
ordered her to sleep. At the end of a few moments, Dr. Janet 
verified the fact that the subject's eyes were closed and that 
she had entered the sleeping state. He did not have any in- 
fluence over her, whereas she obeyed readily and entirely Dr. 
Gibert, who alone could cause the contraction and who himself 
had to wake her — manifest proof that it was he who put her 
to sleep. 

Another experiment, still more conclusive from the 
standpoint of true suggestion, is the following : 



194 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE FUTURE 

Dr. Janet suddenly asked Dr. Gibert, who was in his study, 
to put Leonie to sleep. She was then in another house, about 
five hundred meters away, and she had never been to sleep at 
that hour of the day. He then went to Madame B. and, to 
his disappointment, found her wide awake. He himself put her 
to sleep in the usual way. 

" I know very well," Leonie said to Dr. Janet, " that Dr. 
Gibert has wished to put me to sleep ; but when I felt him, I at 
once put my hands in cold water. . . . / know that he cannot 
put me to sleep thus." 

The truth was that she had actually put her hands in cold 
water before the arrival of Dr. Janet. 

What shows very well that in this case, and in all 
cases of this nature, the essential element is the trans- 
mission of thought — diapsychism and not suggestion 
— is that when the subject enters spontaneously into 
the state of somnambulism she does not obey the will of 
the operator, and much less does she feel his influence 
or receive the communication of his thought. 

Can It be said, therefore, that this experiment failed, 
as Dr. Janet claimed? On the contrary, It seems to us 
that It succeeded even better than if the sleep had effec- 
tively been produced; for that which Is Important Is not 
the obedience of the subject to the order given him 
(obedience which Is merely the banal fact of ordinary 
suggestion), but It Is the transmission of this order to 
the subject. In conditions where It Is Impossible for him 
to receive It by means of normal perception. 

The same experiment was undertaken in somewhat 
different conditions. 

Dr. Janet asked Dr. Gibert to put Leonie to sleep, not at 
that moment, but a quarter of an hour later. He then started 



COMMUNICATION OF THOUGHT 195 

to go to her immediately, to watch the effects upon her and to 
prevent her from putting her hands in cold water; but Leonie 
had shut herself up in her room. 

At the moment agreed upon with Dr. Gibert, Dr. Janet 
went up to her, and found her lying across a chair, in a most 
uncomfortable position, and sound asleep. Her first words, as 
soon as she entered into the somnambulistic state, were a pro- 
test against the surprise which had been given her: "Why 
does Dr. Gibert put me to sleep from his house ? I did not have 
time to put my hands in the basin of water. I will not. . . ." 

Neither Dr. Janet nor any of the assistants had the least 
influence over her, and none of them could provoke muscular 
contraction. In order to wake the subject, they were obliged 
to find Dr. Gibert. 

The experiment of October 14 is perhaps even more 
astonishing. 

That day Dr. Gibert was in Granville, about two kilometers 
from Leonie. Dr. Janet suggested that Dr. Gibert put 
Madame B. to sleep at any hour whatever of the day — the 
hour to be designated by a third person, so that he personally 
should not know it. He went to Leonie at about half-past 
four, and found that she had been sleeping soundly for a quarter 
of an hour. 

At five o'clock, still asleep, she began to moan, to tremble, 
and to murmur: "Enough . . . enough ... do not do 
that." She stood up, she took a few steps; then, bursting into 
laughter, she threw herself backward into the chair, and was 
instantly in deep sleep. 

At five minutes past five, the same scene was repeated: the 
trembling, the moaning, the efforts to get up, to walk, the 
laughter, with these words : *' You cannot ... if a little, if 
only a little you are distracted, I shall wake. . . ." Then deep 
sleep again. 



196 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE FUTURE 

At ten minutes past five, the same actions were repeated. 

When Dr. Gibert arrived at half-past five, he showed Dr. 
Janet a note which had been given to him by a third person, 
M. D., and which asked him to command Leonie mentally 
to perform different complicated acts every five minutes be- 
ginning with five o'clock. 

This time, also, true suggestion had failed, but 
diapsychism — the communication of thought — had 
fully taken place. No example could better show the 
radical distinction between these two phenomena, which 
the one appellation mental suggestion tends to confuse. 

However, It was quite possible to succeed with Leonie 
in experiments of true mental suggestion, provided that 
instead of commanding her to execute the order im- 
mediately, during the sleep, she was mentally com- 
manded to execute an action sometime later, after she 
woke. Dr. Janet cites three experiments made in these 
conditions : 

First Experiment 

Dr. Gibert, without speaking a word, held his forehead near 
Leonie's and mentally ordered her to come between eleven in 
the morning and noon, and *' to offer a glass of water to each 
of these gentlemen.'* He did not tell this order to any one, but 
merely wrote it on a piece of paper, which he put in an 
envelope. 

At half-past eleven Leonie manifested the greatest agitation. 
She left the kitchen, got a drinking-glass, and, carrying it, 
entered the room and asked Dr. Janet if he had not called her. 

At last she fell asleep, through the efforts of Dr. Gibert, who 
was some distance away. And in her sleep she excused herself 
for not having carried out the suggestion fully. "... I was 
all a-tremble when I came to ask you if I had been called . . . 



COMMUNICATION OF THOUGHT 197 

it was not easy to carry the tray . . . why am I wanted to carry 
those glasses? ..." 

Second Experiment 

Dr. Gibert and Dr. Janet at first thought of commanding 
the subject to pluck a rose and visit the letter-box near the 
entrance gate; but they then decided upon the following sug- 
gestion instead : " To-morrow at noon lock the doors of the 
house." The suggestion was written by Dr. Janet upon a piece 
of paper, which he himself carefully guarded, and it was not 
told to a single person. 

The following day, when Dr. Janet arrived at fifteen min- 
utes before noon, he found the house barricaded and the doors 
locked. It was Leonie who had locked them. On being ques- 
tioned, she explained her actions thus: " I felt very tired, and 
I did not want you to get in and put me to sleep." 

At that moment she was greatly agitated. She began to 
wander about the garden, and presently she plucked a rose and 
went to the letter-box. 

Third Experiment 

(In this experiment we once more are in the presence of the 
possible disjunction of the suggestive element from the dia- 
psychic element in the pretended mental suggestion.) 

Dr. Gibert ordered Leonie, by thought, to open an umbrella 
the following day at noon and walk twice round the garden. 

At noon the next day she again became greatly agitated. 
She walked round the garden twice, but did not open the 
umbrella. 

When put to sleep by Dr. Janet, who wished to end her 
increasing state of agitation, she complained that she had been 
" made to walk all about the garden. ... I felt silly ... if 
only the weather was like yesterday's, but to-day I should have 
looked perfectly ridiculous." That day the weather was beau- 
tiful, but the preceding day it had rained hard. Therefore, the 



igS THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE FUTURE 

order, incompletely executed, had at least been perfectly under- 
stood. 

It can be asked, apropos of these experiments, if the 
mechanism of sleep provoked at a distance by mental 
action is assimilable to that of true mental suggestion 
— that which consists in the transmission of an idea. 
In other words, is it really the idea of sleep, present in 
the mind of the operator, which is perceived, more or 
less consciously, by the mind of the subject, and which 
itself produces the sleep, in accordance with the well- 
known laws of suggestion; or is it an indefinable influ' 
encCy emanating from the operator, which is felt by 
the subject and which produces sleep in him, without 
the intervention of any idea? 

In this second hypothesis, the phenomenon would be 
allied more closely with animal magnetism than with 
mental suggestion ; and one then could understand why 
it is often difficult to influence by mental suggestion cer- 
tain subjects in whom sleep at a distance can be pro- 
voked with comparative ease. 

In Our Hidden Forces ^ we have shown the necessity 

1 " Thought-transmission really consists in having the brain of A 
fwhen acting upon the brain of B create in the consciousness of B the 
appearance of an idea or of a series of ideas, identical in nature to 
those luhich occupy the consciousness of A. What was sent from my 
physical brain to that of my subject G. P., during the hundreds of 
experiments with him, was not the idea of sleep nor the idea of wak- 
ing up; it was purely a physical influence which produced sleeping 
and waking, independently of any idea." — Our Hidden Forces, p. 283. 

" The observation of M. J. Hericourt, relative to a woman in whom 
he had never been able to provoke mental suggestion distinctly, but 
who had gone to sleep merely when he nvilled her to sleep, and who 
felt a painful sensation in the precordial region when he thought this 
pain." — Revue philosophique, 1886. 

Dr. Albert Ruault, who reported other similar facts {Revue philo- 



COMMUNICATION OF THOUGHT 199 

for distinguishing these two hypotheses. If this dis- 
tinction may appear filmy, it is because in reaUty — as 
we shall try to show farther on — biactinism (animal 
magnetism) and diapsychism (communication of 
thought) are extremely closely connected with each 
other, or, more properly speaking, diapsychism is but a 
particular derivative of biactinism. 

IV 

Perhaps in examining the question more closely it 
may be doubted that the facts we are now considering 
— and in which ideas suggested mentally are related 
wholly to acts or states — are, strictly speaking, sug- 
gestions of an intellectual order, true suggestions of 
ideas; for it well seems that the idea of the act or state 
may be here only the means of suggestion, of which the 
end is this very act or state. 

What the operator seeks to obtain is not that the 
subject shall think oi the action of " getting up " or of 
" sleeping " ; but that he shall actually get up or sleep. 
To obtain this result, is not his will the essential factor 
even more than his intelligence? 

The real type of true mental suggestion, or at least 
that of purely intellectual diapsychism, would consist, 
therefore, in the communication of an idea, which 

sophtque, 1886), Insisted upon the difference between phenomena of 
this order and true mental suggestion. Speaking of a young man, in 
whom he could himself provoke sleep by a simple effort of will, he 
said : " It was a case of mental suggestion, for I soon recognized that 
he was put to sleep solely by the intensity and the duration of the 
sensation that he felt when I made an effort of will in thinking of 
him. I mean, by this, that he did not sleep because I willed that he 
sleep, but wholly because he felt strongly that my mind was concen- 
trated upon him." 



200 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE FUTURE 

would be realized in the mind of the subject solely as 
an idea, or in the state of representation, of thought, 
and not as an excitation tending to provoke in him, out- 
side of his mind, a certain state or a certain act. 

True mental suggestion, or intellectual diapsychism, 
is sometimes produced spontaneously when, for ex- 
ample, a certain name comes suddenly to the mind of a 
person — without being a result of his preceding 
thoughts — at the precise moment when another per- 
son thinks this name and is on the point of pronouncing 
it. Nearly always, however, one may question 
whether this is not a chance coincidence. Attempts 
have been made to produce the phenomenon experi- 
mentally, especially in England, in the Society for 
Psychical Research. In France, M. Charles Richet 
also has made experiments along this line. 

One individual, A, thinks successively of different 
numbers. Another individual, B, who is placed as far 
as possible in a state of special receptivity, indicates the 
number each time, the idea of it having surged sud- 
denly into his mind. 

Better still, A takes some playing-cards, which only 
he can see, and concentrates his attention upon one at 
a time: B names successively the cards of which he 
thinks. A record is kept of the number of times the 
ideas of A and B correspond; and from the calculation 
of probabilities, the number of these agreements is 
greater than it could possibly be in the hypothesis of 
chance coincidences. 

The experiment appears a little more complicated 
when it is a question of transmitting mentally the idea 
of a somewhat famihar object: a watch, key, ring, vase, 



COMMUNICATION OF THOUGHT 201 

lamp, or even a house, tree, animal, etc. In experi- 
ments of this order instituted by the Society for Psy- 
chical Research of London, the transmitter A was in 
oneiroom, having before his eyes a picture of the object; 
the receptor B was in another room, nearby, trying to 
draw this picture upon paper with a pencil — or at least 
the picture which came to his mind, and this was often 
found to conform, in its characteristic traits, to the pic- 
ture which A was thinking of and gazing upon In- 
tensely. 

The early mesmerists already had observed this 
form of thought-reading, without, however, sufficiently 
distinguishing it from the form in which the communi- 
cation of ideas is made involuntarily, unconsciously, 
from the operator to the subject, the latter appearing 
rather to divine the idea, himself, without the opera- 
tor's having made any effort to transmit an Idea to 
him. 

'' The sleeper y says W. Gregory, '' being put en ^ 
rapport with any one at all, can often describe^ with the j 
greatest exactitude, the thoughts of this person. These 
thoughts may be of an absent friend, or his house, or 
that of another, or his dining-room, his bedroom, his 
study, etc. All these things are perceived by the 
sleeper in proportion to the extent that they occupy the 
mind of the experimenter. He describes them very 
minutely and very exactly, to the point of really aston- 
ishing us." 

W. Gregory remarks, moreover, that this form of 
thought-reading often simulates clairvoyance, with 
which it risks being confused, as we shall show In the 
following*' chapter. 



202 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE FUTURE 

V 

Let us consider now the true reading or penetration 
of thought. This differs, it must be remembered, from 
mental suggestion, in that it is produced independently 
of the will of and unknown to the operator, the active 
role appearing this time to belong wholly to the sub- 
ject. Because of this very circumstance the phenom- 
enon is difficult to constate with certainty. 

However, according to certain contemporary psy- 
chists, especially those who are members of societies 
for psychical research or inspired by their doctrines, 
there is in all the order of parapsychic facts no phe- 
nomenon more frequent than the penetration of 
thought. It mingles, according to them, with almost 
all the others, and renders them incomprehensible to 
those who do not suspect its presence, while it is suffi- 
cient to admit its latent intervention in order to have 
all the obscurities made clear. 

We can apply here to the penetration of thought a 
distinction that we already have applied to suggestion : 
that of fact and of hypothesis. It is one thing to con- 
state directly the penetration of thought as a fact that 
we observe outside of all reasoning; and quite an- 
other thing to suppose that it must have been produced 
on a certain occasion, because this supposition alone 
permits us, we think, to give a plausible solution to the 
enigma which is raised by some particular case. 

I am obliged to confess, however, that I myself have 
never been able to constate the penetration of thought, 
thus understood, in conditions which would leave no 
room for doubt, even though my attention has always 



COMMUNICATION OF THOUGHT 203 

been turned in this direction. With the exception of 
one subject, Ludovig S., who on four different occa- 
sions succeeded in enouncing aloud a name I had each 
time thought of silently,^ I have never found any one 
who might be in a state, either to obey my suggestions 
not manifested by word or gesture, or to divine spon- 
taneously my thoughts, my unexpressed intentions. 
But it may be that chance has served me badly, or 
that I lack the special aptitude which perhaps is indis- 
pensable to produce this sort of phenomenon. 

A young member of my family, who would appear 
to be particularly gifted in this connection, has told 
of an experiment made by him, where it is impossible 
not to see an absolutely genuine case of penetration of 
thought. 

Having finished his military service in a regiment of in- 
fantry at Bordeaux, and returned to Dijon, he had found in 
the wife of one of his friends a hypnotic subject of rare sensi- 
tiveness. After putting her to sleep, he suggested to her that, 
when she woke, she would change personality and would be 
identified with him as he was during his military service. " You 
will be Corporal B. You will have the men of your squad 
in front of you, and you will instruct them." 

The subject, passing from sleep to a state of apparent wak- 
ing, began to call the assistants in a military manner; she ques- 
tioned them about the different grades, the insignia by which 
each is recognized, etc. But this, of course, was knowledge 
that any one could have, without necessarily being connected 
with the army. 

Suddenly, however, when addressing one of the friends of 
her husband — mentally transformed by her into a soldier — 

2 These experiments are described in detail in Our Hidden Forces, 
Chapter XII. 



204 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE FUTURE 

the young woman demanded: '^ What is the name of the 
Colonel of your regiment? " 

The hypnotist quickly spoke the name, as he knew that the 
man questioned did not know it. 

"Be silent!" the subject said promptly. "I am not ques- 
tioning you." 

Therefore he, as well as the man interrogated, remained 
silent when she asked the next question: 

"What is the name of the Captain of your regiment?" 

What was the hypnotist's surprise when the subject herself 
spoke the name, which he thought of silently and which he 
was the only one in the room who knew! His surprise was 
even greater when the improvised Corporal added : 

" You must be as stupid as cruchade not to know the name 
of your Captain! " 

Cruchade is the popular name in Bordelais (the dialect 
spoken in the country around Bordeaux) for corn-pap, and the 
expression, " stupid as cruchade," is currently employed among 
the people of Bordeaux to express extreme stupidity. The ex- 
pression is wholly unknown in Burgundy. Certainly, however, 
the hypnotist had often heard it; perhaps he himself had used 
it in speaking to men of his squad; but surely he was not 
thinking of it at that moment. Not only, therefore, did the 
subject — momentarily identified with the one who had put her 
to sleep — read into his actual and conscious thoughts, but she 
also penetrated even beyond his consciousness, to the very depths 
of his past remembrances. 

It IS in the realm of the subconscious that certain sub- 
jects are able to clarify this ensemble of latent, affec- 
tive, intellectual, and active virtualities which compose 
the character of an individual, when they make of this 
character, in a few minutes, without preliminary indi- 
cations, without apparent effort of reflection, a psy- 



COMMUNICATION OF THOUGHT 20? 

chological analysis such as a professional psychologist 
operating with all the resources known to science, and 
with the most minute information, would certainly be 
incapable of making. 

" I could not doubt,'* wrote Dr. Vaschide, " the sur- 
prise of my friend, Dr. von Schrenk-Notzing, the well- 
known Munich psychologist, when Madame F. wrote 
his psychological portrait with a richness of exuberant 
details. I myself was ignorant of these details, and it 
was absolutely impossible for Madame F. to have 
known them before my consultation, or even to have 
thought to obtain prior information In any way whatso- 
ever; for I had asked her to come, in a note sent by 
messenger. Examples of this kind are numerous.*' 

Undoubtedly, the experimental study of lucidity, in 
the popular meaning of the word, of cartomancy, of 
chiromancy, of psychometry, and of other occult prac- 
tises of this nature — a study evidently very daring and 
in its present form not apt to tempt savants — would 
nevertheless reveal to us, in the midst of much illusion 
and fraud, unquestionable and interesting cases of the 
communication of thought. 

Here is a quotation from Dr. Osty which proves in- 
contestably the reality of Intellectual diapsychism and, 
at the same time, the falsity of the " cartomantic doc- 
trine." Madame K., a card-reader, consulted her 
cards for some one of whom Dr. Osty thought. He, 
after cutting the pack and choosing a certain number of 
cards, pictured mentally the person who must serve as 
the object of the divination. 

When she had disposed the cards, Madame K. began to speak 
to me of this person, very clearly and very exactly. After a 



2o6 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE FUTURE 

few minutes I stopped thinking of the person in question. 
Madame K., however, was still speaking to me when, suddenly, 
I regretted not having exercised this prophetic science in behalf 
of one of my friends whose present life was so active that he 
would yield far richer material for experimentation. Scarcely 
had this thought entered my mind when the card-reader abruptly 
began making revelations which exclusively concerned this sec- 
ond person. The lives of these two were so difEerent that the 
subject soon expressed her astonishment at the odd dissocia- 
tion which seemed to exist In the one individuality which she 
believed she was interpreting. 

Since then I have observed in card-readers, as many times 
as I have wished, this influence of the thought of the consult- 
ant upon the direction of their lucidity. 

In spiritistic seances it is not unusual to establish the 
fact that the responses given by the table, the plan- 
chette, or the pencil, reflect not the thoughts of the 
medium but those of some one of the assistants, who is 
wholly surprised to see thus revealed publicly what 
he believed to be hidden deep within his own heart. It 
is true that believers in the spiritistic doctrine probably 
would refuse to recognize, in this, diapsychism as an 
evident fact, and would consider it merely an hypothe- 
sis, which they have the right to oppose and to displace 
by some other. But if the choice must be determined 
by exclusively scientific reasons, the hypothesis of di- 
apsychism, in conditions such as those we have indi- 
cated, imposes itself to the exclusion of all others. 

VI 

Meanwhile, we come to the facts for which di- 
apsychism is offered to us as a more or less plausible 



COMMUNICATION OF THOUGHT 207 

explanation, and which, if this interpretation were 
definitely adopted, would prove not only that the com- 
munication of thought is a reality, but also that it is a 
very frequent reality; and that it is necessary to see in 
diapsychism as much as, or even more than, in sugges- 
tion, the key to the greater part of the parapsychic phe- 
nomena. 

First of all, there is phreno-magnetism, which re- 
mains a still unsolved enigma. 

" In some magnetic subjects," says W. Gregory, " if 
we touch a given part of their head — such as, for ex- 
ample, the organ of musical sound, or of self-esteem — 
we obtain instantly a corresponding manifestation 
without a word of suggestion. It is really, in many 
cases, as if we were to touch the key of a pipe-organ 
when the bellows are full of wind, thus producing the 
sound instantly. If the musical sound is the organ 
touched, the subject soon begins to sing. If it is self- 
esteem, he throws his head back, is filled with an im- 
mense dignity, and declares himself superior to the rest 
of humanity. If the organ of the love of children be 
touched, the subject cradles an imaginary baby with a 
realistic paternal affection." 

Gregory thus follows the series of effects produced 
by touching different parts of the cranium : benevolence, 
acquisitiveness, prudence, hope, etc. 

" I have spoken," said he, " of only a small part 
of what I have often seen and often produced. It is 
needless to say that I have experimented only in cases 
where fraud was not and could not have been prac- 
tised. The question is, rather : How are these ejects 
produced? " 



2o8 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE FUTURE 

To this question he replies that in certain cases " the 
suggestion or the will of the operator, or the sympathy 
between the operator and the subject, is sufficient to 
explain the facts." This is to recognize the possible 
intervention of diapsychism in phreno-magnetism. 
" But," he adds, '* there are other cases where this 
explanation is valueless," and he enumerates the proofs 
of this assertion. 

First, the subject is often ignorant of even the name 
of phrenology, and does not know the situation of any 
organ. This does not hinder him from reacting in- 
stantly to the contact, at whatever moment it may be 
produced, exactly as if the will or the thought of the 
operator were the agent. But, it may be said, it mat- 
ters not that the subject may be ignorant of what is ex- 
pected, if the operator knows it. 

A second and stronger argument is that when the 
operator, as often happens, is as ignorant of phrenol- 
ogy as is the subject, he is surprised and confused by 
the result; for, in touching a certain part, he did not 
know the function and consequently had no will what- 
ever in this respect. However, there also, asserts W. 
Gregory, the manifestation is just as easily produced. 
Better still, the pressure of a chair, or a wall, upon any 
part of the head, even though it may be accidental, or 
the accidental contact of a hand or an arm, whether of 
the operator or some one else, will produce the same 
effects. Also, it often happens that when an operator, 
acquainted with phrenology, intends to touch a certain 
organ and, turning to speak to some one, touches by 
mistake another organ while thinking of the first, he is 
surprised by what he believes to be the wrong result, 



COMMUNICATION OF THOUGHT 209 

until he discovers the cause. This happens in cases 
where the subject has no knowledge of phrenology. 

It is necessary to state that although these facts have 
been closely studied, they are absolutely incomprehensi- 
ble to us. And we cannot agree with Gregory's conclu- 
sion that in all cases where sympathy or the will — in 
other words, mental suggestion, or diapsychism — is 
not a sufficient explanation, " the results obtained can 
be explained only by admitting the phrenological cen- 
ters and the influence of the operator upon these organs 
by contact." Undoubtedly, there slips into these ex- 
periments, unknown to the observers, a cause of error 
which it is very difficult to discover. It would be 
interesting, therefore, to institute new researches in 
an effort to solve so baffling a problem. 

The same point arises regarding many other para- 
psychic facts. We shall cite here only the most salient. 

The importance attributed by the School of the Sal- 
petriere to the phenomenon of transference is well 
known. This phenomenon consists in the fact that 
" under the influence of metals — or, better still, of the 
magnet — when there appear in certain subjects mani- 
festations of hysteria — such as sensitive and sensorial 
anesthesia, paralysis, contractions, and arthralgia — ■ 
which are limited to one side of the body, they dis- 
appear from this side and appear on the opposite side." 

But the phenomenon of transference is not confined 
to that. Two subjects en rapport with each other can 
play a role analogous to that which in a single subject 
one side of the body plays en rapport with the other 
side. Often this transference from one side to the 
other, or from one subject to another, appears again 



210 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE FUTURE 

spontaneously without a new metallic application and is 
repeated a certain number of times in succession, as if 
by consecutive oscillations. The anesthesia, paralysis, 
contractions, etc., can be thus transferred not only when 
they exist naturally in the patient but even when they 
have been produced artificially by suggestion. 

The School of Nancy naturally attributes these curi- 
ous effects to suggestion. Those who have obtained 
the phenomenon, however, declare that " the conditions 
are such that all idea of simulation or of suggestion 
must be absolutely eliminated." 

** Engaged in new researches," said Binet, " we 
were, in the majority of cases, incapable of foreseeing 
the result. We have hidden the magnet under a cloth, 
and the same effects were produced; we have made the 
magnet invisible by suggestion, and the effect has con- 
tinued to be produced; we have used a magnet made of 
wood, and the effects have been the same; we have 
experimented upon entirely new patients, and have 
obtained identical results." 

All these assertions effectively exclude ordinary sug- 
gestion. But, with the exception of the first, do they 
equally exclude mental suggestion under the form of in- 
voluntary diapsychism? 

In order to answer this question satisfactorily, it 
would be necessary to undertake experiments in condi- 
tions that would prevent the operator, as well as the 
subject, from being able to form in advance any idea of 
the results. 

It is not only with regard to transference that the 
opponents of the School of Salpetriere might resort 



COMMUNICATION OF THOUGHT 211 

profitably to the hypothesis of diapsychism ; it is with 
regard to almost all the particularities attributed to 
hypnotism by the doctrines of this School. It is true 
that it would be necessary for them to go beyond the 
narrow circle of suggestion proper, where they believe 
themselves on firm ground, and to venture upon the 
quicksands of mental suggestion; but, sooner or later, 
they will be forced to do so. We do not believe that 
they can indefinitely claim, without giving precise 
proofs, that all observers and experimenters who do 
not agree with them upon a given detail of hypnotic 
phenomena have owed to their suggestions the effects 
they have related. 

Although the phenomenon has been produced some- 
times, often even, it does not necessarily follow that 
it can be produced always. In some cases these savants 
declare that they have scrupulously abstained from sug- 
gesting anything to their subjects; and we have no rea- 
son for doubting their word. But if they have sug- 
gested nothing voluntarily, knowingly, it is possible — > 
if diapsychism exists — that their subjects have never- 
theless divined their thought and that this thought may 
be manifested in the phenomena observed. 

It may be, for example, the phenomenon of neuro- V 
muscular hyper excitability, which according to the 
School of Charcot, characterizes one of the phases 
of hypnotism: i. e., lethargy. The School of Nancy 
asserts that it has never constated this phenomenon, 
and it concludes, therefore, that it must be a simple 
effect of suggestion. However, it Is very difficult to 
believe — so long as they have furnished no proof — 



212 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE FUTURE 

that all those who have observed it have begun by an- 
nouncing it and describing it aloud in the presence of 
their subjects. But if diapsychism actually exists, it is 
possible that their thought, in the absence of their word, 
has been sufficient to provoke the phenomenon. 

We can say as much of the zones and the hypnogenic 
points, and in general of the hysterical stigmata ad- 
mitted by the School of the Salpetriere, as facts exist- 
ing in themselves, previous to observation, which is 
made only to reveal them, and considered by the School 
of Nancy as illusions, created by the suggestions of 
those who observe them. 

If the intervention of diapsychism be admitted In all 
these cases, one must believe that the idea alone is not 
sufficient for the success of mental suggestion, but that 
it is necessary to have, in addition, the belief (even 
though in many other cases — and this is not the least 
of the obscurities of the question — the idea, without 
the belief, would appear sufficient). 

Let us imagine that two observers experiment suc- 
cessively with the same subject, one Imbued with the 
doctrines of the School of Salpetriere, and the other 
with those of the School of Nancy. The first seeks 
to verify the neuro-muscular hyperexcltabllity, and he 
succeeds ; the second, proceeding by hypothesis in exactly 
the same way, constates a negative result. The second, 
as well as the first, has in his mind the idea of the phe- 
nomenon and of its diverse particularities. But the 
first believes that the phenomenon is possible and that 
he will produce it; the second, on the contrary, believes 
that the phenomenon will not be produced. The sub- 
ject Is, therefore, capable of perceiving the difference 



COMMUNICATION OF THOUGHT 213 

between these two ideas ; one accompanied by belief, the 
other by unbelief, and this is why he reacts differently 
to each of them. 

What would happen if the two operators were to act 
upon the subject at the same time, and one of them 
were to have a preponderating influence upon him? 
While one tends unconsciously to arouse the phenome- 
non, the other tends unconsciously to hinder it. Does 
the first prevail over the second? The partizan of 
the School of Nancy will be astonished to see the sub- 
ject realize — without apparent suggestion — what he 
was assured could be realized only through suggestion. 
The partizan of the School of the Salpetriere will be 
equally astonished to see that the expected effect, often 
obtained by him, is suddenly incapable of being pro- 
duced. 

Let us remark, however, that the inhibitory action of 
mental suggestion, even also as that of ordinary sug- 
gestion, is not necessarily confined to phenomena sus- 
ceptible to be provoked by suggestion, and that conse- 
quently the suppression of a phenomenon by an inhibi- 
tory suggestion does not prove that in the absence of 
this suggestion the phenomenon would not be produced 
naturally. I could, by suggestion, suppress in a pa- 
tient certain symptoms of his illness; is this a reason 
for pretending that these symptoms in him were only 
the effects of a counter-suggestion? Let us admit, for 
hypothesis, that signs of hysteria exist effectively; if 
we admit at the same time, the possibility of a dia- 
psychic inhibition, an observer capable of exerting this 
inhibition unconsciously upon hysterical subjects will 
never constate these signs, because by his very presence 



214 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE FUTURE 

he will hinder their manifestation. Yet it cannot logi- 
cally be concluded that other observers, who have con- 
stated them, have been the playthings of illusion. Per- 
haps certain operators may be particularly apt to in- 
fluence the parapsychic phenomena thus negatively. 

Certainly, this is only an hypothesis, but it is not 
devoid of truth, and it would be well worth while 
to control it experimentally. 

It is especially in the realm of magnetoidal facts that 
diapsychism is called upon to explain all that which 
would appear to contradict the opinions of official 
science, as if diapsychism were not itself in positive con- 
tradiction to these opinions. 

When M. de Rochas explained, under the name of 
exteriorization of the sensitiveness , the singular phe- 
nomena which he had discovered, they were at once 
attributed to the suggestions that he had involunta- 
rily made to his subjects; and when this explanation 
appeared decidedly insufficient, it was claimed that the 
silent thought of the experimenter had in some way 
suggested to the subjects the manifestations of which 
they had given him testimony. 

Permit me here to cite a few personal experiments. 

I happened to read in a prominent Parisian period- 
ical an article upon M. de Rochas's discovery, which 
explained the processes employed by him to "exterior- 
ize the sensitiveness " of a hypnotized subject, and the 
results which he thus obtained. This account had 
aroused my curiosity, but at the same time had left me 
very skeptical. I decided to learn how much reality 
there was In all this. I had then at my disposal a large 




EXTERIORIZATION OF THE SENSITIVENESS 

After the hypnotized subject holds the glass a few moments, the 
operator takes it and pinches the air above the water. Every pinch 
thus inflicted — some distance away from the subject — is felt by 
her keenl\ in the hand she has held above the glass. 



COMMUNICATION OF THOUGHT 215 

number of subjects: all young people who would lend 
themselves well to these experiments. 

My first three attempts gave me only a negative re- 
sult, although at least one of my subjects was of ex- 
ceptional sensibility. It goes without saying that I be- 
gan first by scrupulously imitating the operative method 
of M. de Rochas. Then, seeing that it did not result 
in any of the desired phenomena, I added verbal sug- 
gestion, thus intentionally inciting the subjects to fraud. 
It is necessary to believe that simulation, in the condi- 
tions in which the subjects were placed, was not easy 
for them; for, even thus, I obtained nothing. I was, 
therefore, almost convinced that M. de Rochas had 
either deceived himself or been deceived, that either 
he had been more able than I to suggest the subjects un- 
consciously, or that they had been more clever at simu- 
lating than my subjects. 

A short time afterward, being in a meeting of young 
Parisian workmen, and having put one of them to sleep 
— Auguste M., aged sixteen or seventeen — I suddenly 
conceived the idea of trying once more to produce the 
exteriorization of the sensitiveness. 

" Get me," I said, " a glass and a bottle of water." 

The assistants believed that I intended to produce 
a state of intoxication by suggestion. At least, that is 
what they whispered among themselves. 

The subject stood facing me, blindfolded. Having 
filled the glass three-quarters full of water, I put it 
upon the palm of his left hand, placing his right hand 
above the glass, a few centimeters from the water. 
After a few minutes I withdrew the glass and, without 



2i6 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE FUTURE 

speaking a word, bruskly pinched the air it contained. 
Instantly, to my great surprise, the subject cried: 
" Ouch! You are hurting me! " and quickly clasped 
his right hand with his left. 

" I have hurt you? " I said to him. " How? " 

He took between the thumb and the index finger of 
his left hand the skin of the back of his right hand 
and twisted it, exactly as I had taken and twisted the 
air. 

I then pricked the surface of the water with a pin. 

"You are pricking me now! Will you soon stop 
tormenting me? " 

Going quickly behind him, I repeated the same oper- 
ations ; and the subject again protested about my pinches 
and pin-pricks. 

Suddenly I held the glass to my lips and blew upon 
the water. Instantly the subject raised his hands to 
his eyes and awoke, exactly as if I had blown upon his 
eyes to wake him. 

I was thenceforth convinced that the exteriorization 
of the sensitiveness, whatever its real nature may be, 
was not in every case pure illusion, and I was more 
than ever desirous of studying it. I asked young Au- 
guste, therefore, to come again, with as many of his 
friends as he wished to bring with him, but this time 
to my clinic, where it would be easier for me to experi- 
ment. 

He came the following day; but what was my sur- 
prise when, after placing myself in the same conditions 
with him as before, I could not find in him any of the 
expected reactions ! Had I, then, dreamed when I 
had believed that I observed them the preceding day? 



COMMUNICATION OF THOUGHT 217 

Upon the remark of one of the assistants that this 
lack of success was due perhaps to the fact that im- 
mediately before coming to me, Auguste M. had been 
the object of attempts at hypnotization on the part of 
his comrades, I woke him, then plunged him into a 
deeper sleep. I then had the satisfaction of provoking 
in him again all the phenomena previously observed, 
and this time with a more severe control, the eyes of 
the subject being hermetically bandaged. 

Since then I have been able to constate the exteriori- 
zation of the sensitiveness, not, of course, in all sub- 
jects upon whom I have experimented, but in a suffi- 
ciently large number of them to convince me that it is 
a real phenomenon, of which the cause, whatever it 
may be, is certainly something other than ordinary sug- 
gestion. Among these subjects I could mention Gus- 
tave P., Jean M., and Ludovig S., of whom I have had 
frequent occasion to speak elsewhere.^ 

In the absence of ordinary suggestion, is it mental 
suggestion that causes the exteriorization of the sen- 
sitiveness ? 

It is possible that it intervenes, in certain cases, as a 
perturbant or stimulant cause ; for if it exists — and its 
existence cannot be doubted — it is certainly capable of 
playing this role. But it does not follow that it may 
be taken for granted — a priori and without further 
proof than this simple possibility — that it is the sole 
and sufficient cause of every case observed. 

Especially in my experiments with Auguste M., it 
could not well have been my thought which provoked 

3 Many interesting experiments with these subjects are described in 
Our Hidden Forces. 



2i8 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE FUTURE 

the phenomenon. Because of the failure of all of 
my preceding attempts, and now having a compara- 
tively new subject, my thought was rather that I should 
not succeed in obtaining any effect. And in the second 
seance, because of the success I already had obtained, 
my thought expected the exteriorization of the sensi- 
tiveness, and solicited it intensely; yet, in spite of this, 
the phenomenon refused to appear to me again. 

Here, therefore, is a problem which one should not 
be in haste to declare solved; for its solution must be 
sought patiently, and by the application of the only 
method which can enable us to discover it — the ex- 
perimental method. 

This is true, also, of the phenomenon of polarity. 
The majority of early mesmerists believed that the 
force known as magnetic, more aptly called " biactinic,'* 
is polarized — that is to say, is at the same time posi- 
tive and negative, precisely as electricity and physical 
magnetism. For example, the right side of the human 
body, they believed, was positive, and the left side 
negative. This would entail a whole series of conse- 
quences as to the actions, isonomic and heteronomic, 
exerted by one individual upon another. 

I have made too few researches upon this subject 
for my opinion — were I to risk forming one — to 
have any value. If I speak only of my own personal 
observations, I must say that I have encountered po- 
larity in one subject only, Gustave P., in conditions 
which I have given in detail in Our Hidden Forces* 
To repeat them briefly: 

The right hand held opposite the subject's forehead 
for a few minutes made him pass successively through 



COMMUNICATION OF THOUGHT 219 

three different and distinctly characterized states : fas- 
cination, catalepsy, and somnambulism. The left 
hand, inversely, destroyed the effect of the right hand, 
causing the subject to pass successively from somnam- 
bulism to catalepsy, from catalepsy to the state of 
fascination, and from the state of fascination to the 
waking state. Also, the operator's right hand, di- 
rected toward the subject's hand, his elbow, his foot, 
his knee, etc., determined movements of attraction; the 
left hand produced, in the member aimed at, trembling, 
agitation accompanied by a tingling sensation. And 
this double action, positive and negative, was con- 
ducted by means of a metal wire, according as the 
operator held the wire in his right hand or his left 
hand. 

Certainly, verbal suggestion, as practised by the 
School of Nancy, had no place in these manifestations, 
since the experimenter operated in the most absolute 
silence, after having thoroughly blindfolded the sub- 
ject. 

But cannot the efects he attributed to the communi' 
cation of thought? 

This hypothesis is seductive. It does not, however, 
take Into account a certain number of circumstances 
which concur with It badly. 

First: The operator, who had assisted previously 
in experiments of polarity in a circle of mesmerists 
with very restricted Ideas on the subject, had seen four 
states succeed one another In subjects submitted to the 
actions of both hands; the state of fascination, cata- 
lepsy, somnambulism, and lethargy; and among the 
characteristics of the first state was total anesthesia. 



220 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE FUTURE 

If, therefore, the phenomena must be aroused and 
formed by his thoughts, he should find the same phases 
and the same characteristics. However, in spite of all 
his efforts, he never found that lethargy succeeded the 
somnambulistic state in Gustave P., nor anesthesia ac- 
company the state of fascination. 

Second: It was wholly by chance that the opera- 
tor's right hand was placed near the subject's elbow, 
when this appeared attracted in his direction. At 
that moment the operator had no intention of making 
any experiment whatever. When, however, he tried 
the action of his left hand, he expected to obtain a re- 
pulsion, and was thoroughly astonished to constate 
trembling and tingling. The combined action of the 
two hands must, he then supposed, produce a null 
effect, one neutralizing the other; but, wholly on the 
contrary, he found that there was a coexistence of their 
effects. 

Here again, we should not hasten to reach any con- 
clusion, but should understand that the question must 
remain open. 

And there is greater reason why we should not con- 
sider the reduction of hiactinism (animal magnetism) 
to diapsychism as definitely established. In France the 
partizans of this theory are all those whom the study 
of true suggestion, carried sufficiently far, has finally 
induced to admit the reality of mental suggestion, and 
who believe that by retaining the word " suggestion " 
they keep also the fact and remain faithful to the 
official doctrine. In England its partizans are those 
whom the study of telepathy has convinced of the possi- 
bility of an action exerted by one individual upon the 



COMMUNICATION OF THOUGHT 221 

brain of another Individual, In spite of the often con- 
siderable distance which separates them. 

While the partizans of animal magnetism attrib- 
ute the effects produced by passes, the gaze, and also 
the thought and the will of the operator, to a force siii 
generis emanating from his organism and especially 
from his nervous system, their opponents assert that 
these effects are due exclusively to a mental action which 
has for its starting-point the brain of the operator and 
for Its point of arrival the brain of the subject. 
When my hand appears to anesthetize, contract, or at- 
tract, etc., any part of the subject's body, it does not, 
in reality, exert any action; behind this screen Is hidden 
the true agent, which Is my thought, unconsciously 
divined by the subject and making him obey, wholly as 
if I were to give him the command aloud. I believe 
that his arm will be contracted under my passes, but 
only because of my belief. In order that the contrac- 
tion may cease. It will be sufficient for me to make 
further passes upon his arm, believing that they will 
stop the contraction. This Is not magnetism ; It Is men- 
tal suggestion or telepathy, according to the name you 
prefer to give It. 

If this theory be admitted, one must at the same 
time admit that the communication of thought Is a phe- 
nomenon much more frequent than is ordinarily be- 
lieved, and that it is produced much more easily than 
one might think possible. This insidious character is 
due to the fact that this happens especially In the 
region of the subconsciousness: the conscious effort of 
will to transmit Its thought to other people, or to re- 
ceive the thought of others, far from aiding diapsy- 



222 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE FUTURE 

chism, paralyzes It. This explains the reason why 
those facts which prove It directly are relatively scarce 
while those which prove It Indirectly are frequent. 

We already have shown, apropos of polarity, the 
difficulties of this theory, and we should be able to make 
the same objections to magnetism. They can be 
summed up In the following: 

The effects which we have observed In experiment- 
ing upon the radiating action of the human body, and 
especially of the human hand, are often produced ( i ) 
in the absence of all thought and of all will on our part 

— as, for example, when Gustave P.'s elbow was at- 
tracted by a hand placed accidentally In Its direction; 
(2) contrary to our will and our thought — as wheh 
the left hand. Instead of exercising, as we expected, a 
repulsive action, produced an entirely different effect. 

Moreover, In supposing that magnetism may be only 
a form of diapsychism, It would still be necessary to ex- 
plain diapsychism Itself, which, as we shall see. Is scien- 
tifically as Inexplicable as magnetism. 

VII 

It will be objected, undoubtedly, that as suggestion 
Is now an Incontestable scientific truth, science must 
equally recognize the communication of thought^ which, 
taken all In all. Is but a particular form of suggestion 

— as Indicated by the name " mental suggestion," 
usually applied to It. If the former Is explicable by 
scientific laws actually known, then the latter also 
must be thus explicable. 

To reason In this manner is to take advantage of an 
ambiguity. 



COMMUNICATION OF THOUGHT 223 

The pretended mental suggestion — badly named — 
has nothing In common with true suggestion^ at least 
if we consider its essential components. I verbally 
order a person to stand up, and In spite of his will to 
the contrary he is forced to obey me. That is true 
suggestion. I mentally send the same order to a per- 
son who cannot see nor hear me; he does not obey my 
order, but he tells those near him that at that very 
moment I am commanding him to stand up. There 
the communication of thought fully succeeds, but, at 
the same time, suggestion completely fails. 

There are, therefore. In the so-called mental sug- 
gestion, two different phenomena : 

^ ( I ) The transmission of thought or of will, which 
is made from one brain to another — and it is this that 
it is necessary to explain, if mental suggestion can be 
explained; in the present state of science, unfortunately, 
it is Inexplicable.^ 

(2) Suggestion proper, which consists In the influ- 
ence of an Idea upon the brain which has received it 
(however it may have entered this brain: by hearing, 
sight, or In any other way) . 

In order to connect mental suggestion with ordinary 
suggestion. It would be necessary to prove that there 
is no real difference in the way In which the subject 
perceives the word or the gesture of the suggestioner 

*We are reminded of the words of Professor Pouchet (in Le Temps, 
August 12, 1893) : "To show that one brain, by a sort of gravitation, 
acts at a distance upon another brain, as the magnet upon a magnet, 
the sun upon planets, the earth upon falling bodies, is to discover an 
influence, a nervous vibration, diffusing itself without a material con- 
ductor! . . . But find this for us, good people, show it to us, and your 
name shall be greater in immortality than that of Newton. . . ." 



224 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE FUTURE 

and that in which he perceives his unexpressed thought. 
This is what the author of an ingenious study upon ^' the 
mechanism of mental hypnotic suggestion " ^ en- 
deavored to do. 

After having defined this suggestion from the idea 
commonly admitted: " The influence that the thought 
of the hypnotist exerts, in a determined sense, either 
upon the thought of the hypnotized, or upon the appari- 
tion in the hypnotized of somatic phenomena of hyp- 
notic nature, without having the thought of the hypno- 
tist accompanied by phenomena perceptible to the hyp- 
notized and serving him as signs or indications y** he 
modifies thus the latter part of the definition, " without 
having the thought of the hypnotist accompanied by 
exterior signs of which he had consciousness and which 
were perceptible to the assistants J* 

That which permits one to suppose that the influence 
may be accompanied by signs perceptible to the subject 
is, in fact, the very hypothesis which Dr. Ruault de- 
velops. 

In ordinary suggestion the hypnotist manifests his 
thought by the aid of words; in mental suggestion he 
does not speak. But Dr. Ruault assures us that '' as, 
according to all the experimenters ^ it is necessary that 
the thought he distinct in order that the suggestion may 
fully succeedy^ he gives to his thought the necessary dis- 
tinctness by formulating it with the aid of the word 
within. It is this interior word which the hypnotized 
receives, thanks to his sensorial hyperacuteness. 

Dr. Ruault recognizes, however, that this hyper- 
acuteness is not one of the constant characteristics of 

5 Dr. Albert Ruault, Revue philosophique. 



COMMUNICATION OF THOUGHT 225 

somnambulism, and that physiologists who have at- 
tempted to measure the sensorial acuteness of hypno- 
tized subjects have found, sometimes an augmentation, 
sometimes a diminution, in comparing it with that of 
the same subject in the normal state. 

It does not matter, this scientist affirms, that the 
attentive somnambulist has a special aptitude to seize 
upon and understand the signs of the hypnotist, viz., 
" the very faint muscular sounds of the interior words, 
and the visible movements of the extremely weak artic- 
ulation provoked by the motor images of the words." 
In this latter case, however, It would be necessary to 
suppose in the subject the exercise of the sense of sight. 
If his eyes are closed, and if the hypnotist turns his 
back to him, he must then content himself with the 
sounds which inevitably accompany the muscular move- 
ments necessary for Interior words. 

How can the facts be explained? 

Dr. Ruault first disposes of all the cases where the 
subject is in contact, however slight this may be, with 
the hypnotist, in declaring that " they have already been 
rejected, as not being mental suggestion," and even of 
those cases where the hypnotist is In the presence of the 
subject, for " they are not considered fully proved." 
Now remains " the supreme argument, mental sug- 
gestion at a great distance." 

But first " It Is by no means demonstrated that facts 
of this kind may be safe from all criticism," since the 
author does not find them In absolute contradiction to 
the Interpretation that he proposed; " so long as they 
remain isolated, exceptional, and more or less doubt- 
ful, one must be confined to registering them with the 



226 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE FUTURE 

utmost possible detail until the state of science per- 
mits the explanation to be found." 

It is evident that with similar processes of dialectic 
one would be able to demonstrate or to refute anything 
that one wished. The reader has only to review all 
the facts that we have enumerated, in order to see that 
the proposed interpretation falls short for the greater 
part of them. It does not seem applicable even to the 
experiments made by Dr. Ruault. He recognizes that 
his two subjects " sometimes felt the influence strongly 
from one room to another of the same apartment," 
and that he had been able to put them to sleep thus, 
even though really they did not suspect his presence. 
He says: 

One of these persons felt me, sometimes very forcibly, when 
I willed it strongly, although I was in the street and he in the 
mezzanine of the Rue Cujas. One evening when, accompanied 
by a friend, I left the house of one of these subjects, a medical 
student, upon whom I had made some experiments in hypno- 
tism, I tried, from the staircase of the lower fioor, to suggest 
to him mentally complete paraplegia; and it seemed to me 
that my mental suggestion had reached him. I had not in any 
way thought of attempting the experiment when I was near 
him ; the idea did not come to me until the very moment I put 
it into execution. Immediately after my attempt was made, I 
went up to my somnambulist to see if the suggestion had suc- 
ceeded. I found him seated in an arm-chair, complaining that 
his legs were numb and he could not raise them. 

Undoubtedly, Dr. Ruault himself was persuaded that 
his subject had understood, through the doors of his 
apartment and from one floor to another, *' the very 



COMMUNICATION OF THOUGHT 227 

faint muscular sounds of the interior word " which 
accompanied this thought, *' I will that you present 
the symptoms of complete paraplegia^' But it would 
be difficult to persuade others of this. 

For those who, as the members of the Society for 
Psychical Research, consider the facts of mental sug- 
gestion as being of the same order as the facts of telep- 
athy, it is not possible to explain them by the sole 
hyperacuteness of the ordinary instruments of sensible 
perception. We are here in the presence of an orig- 
inal phenomenon, a sort of wireless telegraphy or 
telephony which puts two brains into communication, 
in conditions still unknown. Even these comparisons, 
these expressions borrowed from physics and physiol- 
ogy, are repugnant to the partizans of the telepathic 
interpretation : the phenomenon, as we know it, belongs 
to pure psychology. 

A certain thought Is In the mind of one person, A. 
A thought identical to that, and certainly provoked by 
it, is born at the same moment In the mind of another 
person, B, even though these two persons had not been 
able to exchange their thoughts by ordinary means. 
All of this has many times been established, and all of 
it we must admit. 

What is it that happens in the brains of the two peo- 
ple, and in the space which separates them? 

We do not know, say the partizans of the telepathic 
interpretation, and furthermore we need not trouble 
about it. We must consider the fact of the communi- 
cation of thought a primary fact, certain although in- 
explicable, and use it boldly as a principle of explanation 
for all the facts it is possible to ally with it. 



228 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE FUTURE 

Any such position appears to us to be scientifically un- 
tenable. If it is the soul, as such, which, independently 
of the brain and nervous system, independently of all 
physiological and physical mechanism, can thus make 
its action felt at a distance, we can easily establish the 
fact; but this fact, without analogy to the rest of nature, 
escapes all scientific explanation, all experimental re- 
search. For explanation and experimentation are pos- 
sible, according to Claude Bernard, only where the 
phenomena are absolutely determined in their natural 
conditions. To attribute to thought and will the mys- 
tic property of communication from one mind to an- 
other without any physical connection between the 
brains where they have their natural conditions, is to 
place ourselves definitely beyond the realm of science. 

But any such conception is no more defendable philo- 
sophically. In fact, if we regard it from the philosoph- 
ical point of view, there is absolutely nothing in the 
nature of the soul which can justify it. 

From the fact that a certain thought is in me — for 
instance, the principle of a reasoning — it can be con- 
ceived that another thought must follow — for in- 
stance, the conclusion of this reasoning; for there is 
here no interval, no space. But from the fact that a 
certain thought is produced in my brain, how does it 
follow that another thought (identical or not in nature) 
is produced in some other brain, separated from mine 
by all sorts of intermediaries? Since it is a question 
of space, we leave the immaterial sphere of conscious- 
ness to fall into the realm of matter and movement; the 
mechanical explanation of the phenomena, and their 



COMMUNICATION OF THOUGHT 229 

experimental determination, become immediately pos- 
sible and necessary. 

It is, in fact, a postulate of the scientific method uni- 
versally admitted by all modern scientists and philos- 
ophers, since Descartes, that if we wish to study 
scientifically any phenomenon whatsoever — physical 
or mental — we must endeavor to connect it with 
physical conditions: that Is to say, to its physical ante- 
cedents or concomitants. This postulate, purely scien- 
tific, does not imply any hypothesis, any metaphysical 
system, materialism, monism, or other. It is possible, 
however, that our effort to connect certain phenomena 
with physical conditions may be condemned never to 
end practically; but It is experimentation which will 
prove this to us, and we must not suppose it a priori^ 
for this would be to shut out from ourselves in advance 
all possibility of scientific investigation. 

Therefore, we cannot stop at the mere affirmation of 
the communication of two minds, In the phenomenon of 
the transmission of thought. Willingly or unwillingly. 
It Is necessary to admit also the intercommunication of 
two brains. But, once entering upon this path, is it 
possible for us not to keep on to the end : to the inter- 
communication of two nervous systems — in other 
words, to animal magnetism? 1 1 

A characteristic of all the diapsychic phenomena Is 
that they imply the possibility for a brain to radiate at 
a distance, not, unquestionably, the will or the thought, 
but an influence capable of transmitting or reproducing 
the will and the thought, as electric currents sent along 
the telegraphic wires transmit — or, rather, reproduce 



230 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE FUTURE 

— the despatch at the other end. If the brain of the 
operator sends nothing to the brain of the subject, and 
if the intermediary space contains nothing which puts 
them into relation with each other, this communication 
of two consciousnesses is a supernatural, superscientific 
phenomenon, which is not connected with any other in 
our entire experience, and of which it would be neces- 
sary to abandon all efforts to find an explanation. 

But when the members of the Society for Psychical 
Research oppose among themselves the two hypotheses 
of effluence and thought-transference — that is to say, 
animal magnetism and telepathy — are they not 
blinded by an illusion produced by the words? Is it 
not evident that thought-transference is only a partic- 
ular form of effluence — a cerebral and mental efflu- 
ence, necessarily more complicated and obscure than 
the simple nervous and vital effluence? 

There is no serious reason for believing that the 
power to influence at a distance appertains exclusively, 
in the organism, to the brain considered in its functional 
unity as the organ of will and thought. Undoubtedly, 
the brain has, in man, a preponderating and unique role. 
It is the organ of conscious life, of intellectual and 
moral life. However, its psychological functions (if 
they may be called this) have evidently for their basis 
and their condition the physiological properties of the 
elements which compose It. 

Neither will nor sensations could exist If the nerve 
fibers did not possess the property of conducting move- 
ment, if the nerve centers did not possess that of re- 
ceiving it and of reflecting It by transforming It. 

These properties, however, are not peculiar to a few 



COMMUNICATION OF THOUGHT 231 

elements of the brain; they are common to all the ele- 
ments of the brain; they are the general ^properties of 
the neurons. 

Therefore, if the will and the thought can be com- 
municated from one brain to another, all the analogies 
not only authorize us but even oblige us to see in this 
phenomenon only a particular consequence of some 
general property of the cerebral and nervous cells ante- 
cedent, so to speak, to the will and the thought. And 
in what could this property consist, if not in a sort of 
radiation or expansion of the nervous force, which the 
phenomena of heat, light, and electricity render it com- 
paratively easy for us to conceive? 

The hypothesis which links diapsychism to animal 
magnetism appears to us, therefore, to be more favor- 
able than the hypothesis contrary to the investigations 
of science, and to be more in conformity with the 
scientific method. _ 

But when it is a question to know, in each particular 
case, whether we have to deal with a fact of animal 
magnetism {nervous biactinism) or of diapsychism 
{cerebral biactinism) , we should not theorize, however 
Ingenious and seductively easy this may be; it is ex- 
perimentation alone which can lead us to the truth. 



CHAPTER XI 



CLAIRVOYANCE, OR METAGNOMY 



j> 



Under the denomination of clairvoyance a large 
number of facts may be brought together. They might 
be different in nature, but all would be extremely ob- 
scure, not to say incomprehensible, and of an appear- 
ance even more marvelous than those which we studied 
in the preceding chapter and with which they have so 
great an affinity that it is sometimes very difficult to 
distinguish one from the other. 

These facts, which were known long ago, especially 
by the early adepts in animal magnetism, are to-day 
attracting the world-wide attention of the savants. 
They have been too long denied a hearing, owing to 
their unscrupulous exploitation by charlatans at the 
expense of the credulous public. 

Perhaps the name clairvoyance (as also the term 
double sight or second sight) is not very aptly chosen, 
to apply equally well to all the forms of the phenome- 
non; for it is not always a question of vision. In some 
cases it would appear to be analogous to a perception 
of hearing (from which we have the name clair audience 
to designate one of Its forms) ; in others, to that of 
touch. 

To overcome this difficulty we should have a word 
that would signify, in a general way: *^ Knowledge 

232 



CLAIRVOYANCE 233 

obtained by certain individuals, in certain particular 
states, which does not seem to be explicable by the exer^ 
cise of our normal senses and intellectual faculties." 

If I did not fear to incur once more the double re- 
proach of barbarism and pedantism, to which every 
inventor of technical words drawn from the Greek ex- 
poses himself, I should propose, in order to designate 
the phenomenon in the most general way, the word 
metagnomy (from beyond, and knowledge). This 
word, therefore, signifies approximately: *^ KnowU 
edge of things situated beyond those we can normally 
know; supernormal knowledge J* 

The first question to arise in the study of clairvoy- 
ance, or " metagnomy," is this: 

Does a supernormal knowledge of this kind really 
exist? 

That is a question of fact, which can be answered 
only by enumerating the facts. But as these facts are 
so numerous and, in appearance at least, so diverse, 
so different from one another, our first question must 
be changed into another question : 

What are the different forms of this supernormal 
knowledge? 

II 

Our normal knowledge may bear ( i ) upon facts or 
objects actually existing {perception) ; (2) upon past 
events {memory) ; (3) upon future events {previ- 
sion) ; or (4) upon the rapports, the general truths, 
independent of time, such as, for example, scientific 
laws (generalization, reasoning, reason proper). 

If we apply this classification to supernormal knowl- 



234 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE FUTURE 

edge, it seems that we can, at least temporarily, well 
omit the last of these categories, because the facts that 
could be classified under this fourth heading are exceed- 
ingly rare, and especially because it is very difficult to 
distinguish them from normal facts of the same kind. 
On the one hand, mediums, even those with exceptional 
powers of clairvoyance, have never or seldom revealed 
to humanity any scientific truths of importance. On 
the other hand, who can say where the normal and 
the supernormal begin and where they end, in the intui- 
tions of men of genius? In studying the metagnomic 
phenomena, therefore, we can limit ourselves to the 
first three kinds of knowledge: perception, memory, 
and prevision. 

With regard to perception, it seems that a special 
sense — which might be called a sixth sense — would 
appear to be developed in certain individuals, in certain 
particular circumstances, in order to put them en rap- 
port with the radiations or emanations of things in- 
accessible to our ordinary senses, and to permit the 
intelligence of these subjects or mediums thus to have 
information sui generis, the origin of which is entirely 
unknown to us. 

Is there not something analogous to this in the 
extraordinary acuteness of the dog's sense of smell, 
or in its sense of locality or orientation? We are 
forced to believe the existence of this sense in a large 
number of animals, without in any way being able to 
understand its nature. 

It is exceedingly difficult to classify the many and 
varied forms of metagnomic perception ; for the differ- 
ences between them are often imperceptible, and we are 



CLAIRVOYANCE 235 

not unaware of the strongly arbitrary and artificial 
divisions which we are obliged to introduce in the midst 
of facts really indivisible, in order to facilitate their 
study. 

All psychological treatises teach the distinction be- 
tween perception by consciousness (inner perception or 
intimate sense, having for its object the psychological 
life of the *'self**) and perception by the senses (ex- 
terior perception, having for Its object the world of 
material things) ; in other words, subjective perception 
and objective perception. 

Similarly, although not so precisely, we could distin- 
guish two varieties of clairvoyant or metagnomic per- 
ception, the first being exercised especially In the inner 
world of consciousness, the second belonging rather to 
the exterior world of objects and physical events. 

It Is undoubtedly necessary to attribute to the former 
that strange faculty which certain subjects possess of 
being able to perceive the condition of their internal 
organs, with such distinctness as to enable them to de- 
scribe this condition precisely. This faculty was recog- 
nized by the early mesmerists, and afterward admitted 
and studied by Dr. Sollier under the name of aiitoscopy. 
It was demonstrated In the case of a patient who, hav- 
ing swallowed a pin two months previously, was able, 
in a state of hypnosis, to follow It in all the stages of 
its voyage through the Intestines. 

The field of vision of this faculty Is not necessarily 
limited to the organism of the one who possesses It; it 
can be exercised also upon the organism of another 
person. Many somnambulists, according to the early 
mesmerists, perceived the condition of the organs of 



236 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE FUTURE 

persons who were put en rapport with them, and ex- 
perienced, by a sort of inexplicable sympathy, the same 
internal organic sensations. There was a co-penetra- 
tion of two sensibilities and of two consciousnesses. 
We studied it in the preceding chapter under the name 
of diapsychism. It could better be said that diapsy- 
chlsm is a particular form of metagnomy, since it also 
is " a knowledge obtained by certain individuals, in cer- 
tain particular states, which Is not explicable by the 
exercise of our normal senses and intellectual faculties." 

It is a fact of the same kind which must really con- 
stitute what has been called the magnetic rapport. 
The hypnotized subject, who is Insensible to all other 
persons, is particularly sensible to the influence of his 
hypnotizer. When any one else speaks to him, he 
does not understand nor answer. He understands and 
answers when the hypnotizer speaks to him; and he 
understands and answers equally well all other persons 
who are put en rapport with the hypnotizer by contact. 
He perceives, then. In some way unknown to us, the 
contacts felt by the hypnotizer. 

It Is not only the Inner sensations which may thus be 
perceived: one may perceive also phenomena of a more 
purely psychological or subjective nature — ideas, in- 
tellectual operations, acts of will, of taste, of habits, 
the disposition, Innate or acquired, the temperament, 
the character. The medium reads the thought, the 
soul, of some one else, as he would read himself. 
Sometimes It is at the request or with the permission 
of the other person that he penetrates Into the Inner self 
thus opened to his gaze. But sometimes, also, It is 
spontaneously, and unknown to the other persons, that 



CLAIRVOYANCE 237 

his gaze penetrates them and discovers secrets hidden 
in the very depths of their consciousness. It is then a 
true divination of thought. 

Those beings who are gifted with such powers of 
divination are, in the eyes of Dr. Osty, prodigies in 
whom " the brain has reached a higher degree of sen- 
sibility, when it becomes the reactive capable of disclos- 
ing what is in the brains of other men. They are the 
interpreters that nature has created between our whole 
mind and our consciousness. They are the mirrors be- 
fore which our otherwise unconscious thoughts are seen 
and comprehended." 

Ill 

The objective or physical form of metagnomic per- 
ception, whose affinities with diapsychism (thought- 
transference) are less visible, also presents a large num- 
ber of varieties. 

First, let us set aside those which correspond to the 
phenomena we have brought together under the name 
of hyloscopy, the most common of which are the influ- 
ences exercised by springs, currents of water, metals, 
etc., upon the special sensibility of pendulum- and rod- 
diviners. 

If we consider rather the perceptions relevant to the 
general sensibility common to the entire human race, 
the first fact to note is that of the exteriorization of the 
sensitiveness f discovered by Colonel de Rochas, but the 
interpretation of which is still generally contested. 
Instead of perceiving upon his own body the contacts, 
pricks, pinches, etc., that are made, the subject feels 
them at various distances, or even in objects which 



238 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE FUTURE 

have been for a certain length of time in contact with 
him. 

Related to this fact is that of reading through the 
tips of the fingers. We have analyzed in detail an 
example of this kind in Our Hidden Forces,^ The 
series of experiments related there was, unfortunately, 
interrupted by the departure of the subject, Ludovig S., 
for the north of France, where he remained from 1907 
until 19 14. It was only in 19 14 that he returned to 
Dijon, where the mobihzation had called him, and 
where he remained but a very short time. During his 
stay, however, I managed to conduct some interesting 
experiments. 

On December 9, 1914, Ludovig S. came to my clinic at about 
6 145 in the evening, and was very quickly put to sleep by verbal 
suggestion. I then blindfolded him, and turned on the electric 
light in a room near my clinic (my secretary's office). I closed 
the door of this room, and left half open that leading from my 
clinic into a small passage which separated the two rooms. The 
only illumination that I had, then, was the light which came 
through the glass door of my secretary's office into the clinic. 
The subject, blindfolded, was seated in the farthest and darkest 
corner of the room. 

I put into his hands a folded copy of a newspaper, *' Vlnde- 
pendant, de VAuxois et du Morvanf^ the first line of the title, 
Vlndependant, being printed in very large characters. 

He passed his fingers over the title; but it seemed that his 
special sensibility had disappeared, or perhaps was singularly 
dulled during the very long interruption of our experiments, for 
he declared that he could " see " nothing. 

I gave him then a volume bound in red morocco, which had, 

1 Chapter XI, " Apparent Transposition of the Senses." 



CLAIRVOYANCE 239 

printed in relief, in the center of its cover the arms of the second 
empire, and around this the words: '' Concours general des 
departements." I urged the subject to persist, and to have con- 
fidence in himself, telling him that this time the letters were 
raised. 

I heard him murmur the syllable "Con**', and then he 
stopped. 

" That is right," I encouraged him. 

'' Conseil/* said he. 

" No! Pay attention! " I commanded. 

" Conference/* he said. 

I told him that there were two words, one following the 
other ; and he then deciphered the second, "^ general^ syllable by 
sjdlable. Next came the inscription below : " des departe- 
ments." He then returned to " Concours " and read it at last, 
but not without hesitation and much effort. 

The title of a novel by Frometin, Dominiquej was then read 
very easily; and the subject himself recognized that there was 
something above the title : "^ Eugene Fromentin/* he read. 

Similarly, he read upon another volume : " Uhysterie et 
la neurasthenie chez le paysan/* 

Then followed : " Serotherapie antitetanique/* For the last 
word there was hesitation upon the '' antite/* the subject saying 
at many attempts, " antitera/* before he read it correctly. 

The newspaper was again put into his hands. This time he 
read without difficulty: " Tlndependant'^ ; but he went no 
farther, declaring that there was nothing more there. I saw 
then that, the paper being folded, the second line of the title, 
'' de VAuxois et du Morvanf* was under the fold. But, al- 
though printed in very small characters, he read it as easily as 
the rest when it was put under his fingers. 

An old photograph, of somewhat large size, was then given 
to him ; and he asked me if it was necessary for him to " see " 
it. When I answered in the affirmative, he told me that it 



240 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE FUTURE 

was my portrait, and I was shown in profile — which was quite 
correct. 

A second photograph, smaller in size, and in medallion form, 
was given to him. Once more he asked if it was necessary for 
him to see it ; and when I answered as before, he said : " It is 
you, but in another pose: turned almost full-face, and taken 
from the other side." This equally was true. 

Proceeding always in the same direction, we find the 
fact of sight through opaque bodies^ many times de- 
scribed by the early mesmerists, especially by W. Greg- 
ory. Certain of our contemporaries believe they ex- 
plain this phenomenon by connecting It with X-rays. 
At least, the following despatch from New York to the 
Daily Chronicle appeared in Le Matin, m March, 
1913: 

A little girl, ten years old, named Beulah Miller, possesses, 
according to Dr. John Quackenbos, a member of the Academy 
of Medicine who examined her thoroughly, an X-ray vision. 
She can see through opaque bodies ; and had no difficulty, during 
the experiments, in telling what the assistants had in their 
pockets, in reading a certain page of a closed book, and in de- 
scribing objects placed in closed boxes. 

Here are $ome details upon these facts reported by 
W. Gregory: 

The experiments were made by Major Buckley, with 
persons whom he had put Into a state of clairvoyance, 
and who could, In this state, decipher written mottoes 
enclosed In nutshells. The statistics upon this subject 
are very curious. Out of eighty-nine persons made 
clairvoyant In the waking state, forty-four were capable 
of reading in this way. In a state of hypnotic sleep, 



CLAIRVOYANCE 241 

the number of readers was raised to one hundred and 
forty-eight. The written mottoes contained in four 
thousand eight hundred and sixty nutshells have been 
read; and about thirty-six thousand words understood. 

In a small number of cases they were deciphered by 
thought-reading, the persons who had put them in the 
shells being present; but in the majority of cases the 
words were not known to any of the assistants, and, 
consequently, they had to be read by direct clairvoy- 
ance. Every precaution was taken. The nuts enclos- 
ing the written mottoes had been purchased in forty 
different stores, and had been sealed until the moment 
of the reading. 

The following case will give a more precise idea of 
this experiment : 

Sir Wiltshire had carried away with him a " nest of boxes " 
belonging to Major Buckley, and he had placed in the innermost 
box a small piece of paper upon which he had written a word. 
A few days later he brought back the boxes, with the paper 
sealed inside, and asked one of Major Buckley's clairvoyants to 
read the word. The Major made a few passes over the boxes ; 
and the clairvoyant said that she saw the word " Concert." 

Sir Wiltshire declared that the first and last letters were 
right, but that the word was different. 

She persisted, however, that the word was " Concert " ; and 
then he told her that the word was " Correct." 

In opening the boxes, it was found that the word actually was 
" Concert!' 

" This case," said W. Gregory, " is very remark- 
able; for if the clairvoyant had read the word by 
thought-reading, she would have read it according to 



242 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE FUTURE 

Sir Wiltshire's belief. He either had had the inten- 
tion of writing ' Correct,' or else in the interval had 
forgotten that he had written ' Concert,' for he cer- 
tainly believed that the word was * Correct.' " 

Let us go a step farther and we find ourselves in the 
presence of the phenomenon of vision at a distance, 
which is generally called second sight or lucidity. 
With this, it seems that space does not exist, and that 
one can perceive In an instant what is happening In 
places very far distant: a sort of teleopsy, natural even 
though inexplicable, a phenomenon comparable In its 
nature to wireless telegraphy or telephony. The 
books of the early mesmerists abound In descriptions 
of facts of this order. 

We quote from an article In the Revue philosophique 
(1889) upon the observations of Dr. Dufay, of Blols, 
in his experiments with a young servant, who presented 
the phenomenon of second sight In the highest degree. 

When Dr. Dufay's friend. Dr. GIrault, was invited 
by a relative, Madame D., to witness the phenomena 
of clairvoyance exhibited by her young servant Marie, 
Dr. Dufay had asked to be permitted to arrange the 
program of the seance, by wrapping up many small ob- 
jects, In a way that would conceal their nature, and so 
that he might not he able to know one from the other 
himself. These small packages were to be given to 
the somnambulist, and she had to discover by clairvoy- 
ance what each contained. The matter was arranged, 
and the day fixed. 

This Is Dr. Dufay's description of the seance: 

I laid aside a few objects that were not in ordinary usage, 



CLAIRVOYANCE 243 

so that chance guessing might be eliminated, when there reached 
me from Algeria a letter from the chief of a battalion of in- 
fantry, whom I had known in the garrison at Blois. The 
commandant told me many episodes of his life in the desert, 
and spoke especially of his health, which had become very poor. 
He had slept in a tent during the rainy season, and that had 
developed in him, as in most of his comrades, violent dysentery. 

I placed this letter in an old envelope, without address or 
postmark, and carefully sealed it. Then I put this into a second 
envelope, of a dark color, and sealed it as the first one. 

On the appointed day I arrived at Madame D.'s a little late. 
Marie was already asleep; therefore she was ignorant of my 
presence, knowing only that I was expected. The ten or twelve 
persons gathered in Madame D.'s salon were astonished by the 
somnambulist having recognized, without mistake, the contents 
of several packages prepared by them. I also had prepared 
some small packages, but I left mine in my pocket; and, in order 
to break the monotony of the experiment, it occurred to me to 
slip my letter into the hand of one of the assistants, motioning 
to him to pass it to Dr. Girault. The doctor received it with- 
out knowing that it had come from me, and put it into the 
hands of Marie. 

I did not notice whether her eyes were open or closed ; but, 
in a case of this sort, it was of little importance. 

" What is it that you have in your hand? " Dr. Girault asked 
the subject. 

" A letter." 

" To whom is it addressed ? " 

" To Dr. Dufay." 

"By whom?" 

" By a military man whom I do not know." 

" Of what does this military man speak in his letter ? " 

" He is ill. He speaks of his illness." 

" Can you tell what the illness is ? " 



244 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE FUTURE 

"Oh, yes! Very easily. It is the same as that of the old 
man of Mesland, who is not yet cured." 

" Very good ... I understand . . . dysentery. Listen, 
Marie! I believe that you would give Dr. Dufay great pleas- 
ure if you were to go to see his friend, the military man, so that 
you might bring back with you some news of him." 

" Oh, it is too far! It would be a long trip! " 

" Never mind ! Leave at once. We will wait for you." 

(After a long silence.) " I cannot continue my journey. 
. . . There is water, a great deal of water." 

"And you cannot cross the bridge?" 

" But there is no bridge ! '* 

** There is perhaps a boat that will take you across, as be- 
tween Onzain and Chaumont." 

(The Chaumont bridge over the Loire had not then been 
built.) 

" Boats . . . yes ; but this Loire frightens me ... a real 
flood!" 

" Go on. Take courage and embark." 

(A prolonged silence, agitation, pallor of the face, a little 
nausea. ) 

" Will you soon arrive? " 

" I have arrived ; but I have been very tired, and I do not 
see any one on shore." 

" Disembark, and you will find some one." 

" Voila, voila! I see many people . . . nothing but women 
in white. But, no ! On the contrary, they all have beards." 

" All right ! Go up to them and ask them to show you 
where you will find the military man." 

(After a silence.) "They do not speak as we do. I have 
had to wait until they called a little boy with red trousers, who 
has been able to understand me. He has conducted me him- 
self, and with very quick steps, because we walk in the sand." 

" And the military man ? " 



CLAIRVOYANCE 245 

** There he is. He has on red trousers and an officer's cap. 
But he looks ill, and is thin ! " 

" Does he tell you what caused his illness? " 
. ** Yes ; he shows me his bed — three planks upon some stakes, 
above damp sand." 

" All right. Thank you. Tell him to go to the hospital, 
where he will have a better bed, and you return to Blois." 

I then asked my confrere to open the letter and read it. And 
he was not the least satisfied among those in the salon ; for the 
success of the seance had surpassed all his expectations. 

Dr. Dufay had a new proof of the clairvoyant pow- 
ers of this young somnambulist a few days later. He 
says: 

Marie, in a state of natural somnambulism, had put her mis- 
tress's jewels out of their customary place, and had been accused 
of stealing them. I called at the prison in Blois, where she was 
detained, and, by inducing her into artificial somnambulism, 
awakened her memory and thus proved her innocence; but, 
because of judiciary formalities, she was not immediately per- 
mitted to leave the prison. 

Early on the following day I was called to investigate a sui- 
cide which had taken place. A prisoner, accused of murder, 
had strangled himself with his necktie, by attaching one end of 
it to the foot of his bed, which was fastened to the floor. Lying 
flat on his stomach, on the floor of the cell, he had had the 
courage to push himself backward with his hands until the slip- 
knot of the tie had produced the strangulation. The body was 
already cold when I arrived, simultaneously with the attorney 
and the magistrate. 

The attorney, to whom the magistrate had related the scene 
with the somnambulist the preceding day, wished to see Marie. 
I then suggested that I question this young girl about the crim- 



246 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE FUTURE 

inal who had taken justice into his own hands; and the magis- 
trate accepted my proposition eagerly. Accordingly, I cut off 
a small piece of the necktie, and wrapped it in several sheets of 
paper, which I tied up securely. 

Arriving at the women's quarters, we went to the dormitories, 
and asked the woman in charge to let us use her room. 

I then, without speaking a single word to Marie, beckoned 
her to follow us. After putting her to sleep by a simple appli- 
cation of the hand against her forehead, I took from my pocket 
the package I had prepared, and put it into her hands. In- 
stantly, she jumped out of her chair, and threw the package 
away from her with horror, crying angrily that she did not want 
" to touch that." 

Now, it is well known that in prisons, suicides are kept secret 
as long as possible. Nothing had been said in the prison, about 
the suicide of the criminal, even the attendant being ignorant 
of it. 

*' What do you think this package contains? " I asked Marie, 
when she had calmed somewhat. 

" It is something that has been used to kill a man! " 

*' A knife, perhaps? Or a pistol?" 

" No, no ! A cor J ... I see. ... It is a necktie ... he 
has hanged himself. But tell that man who is behind me to sit 
down, for he is trembling so much that his legs cannot support 
him." (It was the magistrate, who was so strongly affected by 
what he was witnessing that, actually, he was trembling vio- 
lently.) 

" Can you tell me where this has taken place ? " 

" Right here . . . you know very well. It is a pris- 
oner . . ." 

" And why was he in prison ? " 

" For having killed a man who had asked him to get into 
his cart." 

"How did he kill him?" 

" With a gouet/' 



CLAIRVOYANCE 247 

Gouet is the name of a sort of hatchet, with a short handle, 
and a broad and long blade curved at the end like the beak of 
a parrakeet. It is an instrument in common use in the country, 
especially by coopers and woodcutters. And it was, actually, a 
gouet that I had mentioned in my medico-legal report as being 
probably the weapon with which the murder had been com- 
mitted. 

Up to this point Marie*s answers had told us nothing that we 
did not already know. But just then the magistrate drew me 
aside and whispered in my ear that the gouet had not been 
found. 

" And what has he done with his gouet? " I asked the subject. 

"What has he done? . . . Listen! . , . He has thrown it 
into a pool. ... I see it very clearly at the bottom of the 
water.*' 

And she indicated the location of this pool exactly enough 
to enable the authorities to go to it that same day, accompanied 
by the chief of police, and to find the instrument of the crime. 
We did not know of this result until that evening; but already 
the skepticism of the magistrates was greatly shaken. 

To satisfy their curiosity, I asked the woman in charge of 
the prisoners to borrow from them some small articles that 
belonged intimately to them, such as a ring, an earring, etc., 
and tie them up into little packages, entirely disguising the 
nature and shape of the article. Marie told us exactly what 
had caused the imprisonment of each of the women to whom the 
objects belonged." ^ 

Second sight is a phenomenon so extraordinary, 
which so violently shakes all admitted beliefs, that I 
may be pardoned if I cite many examples. 

2 In the same issue of the Revue philosophique appears an article 
by the director of the Normal School of Gueret, upon a young student 
of his school who presented marked phenomena of clairvoyance during 
periods of natural somnambulism. 



248 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE FUTURE 

Here is one that has been told to me recently, by the 
man who experimented, and who, at my request, has 
written down the incident. He is Mr. Jean B., school- 
master in one of the principal schools of Perpignan. I 
shall give his version without changing anything except 
the proper names, of which I shall give only the initials. 

In the month of August, 1892, when I was schoolmaster at 
Ceret, a professional hypnotist gave a performance of hypnotism 
in a cafe of that village. The subject was a young boy of 
eighteen, Raymond S., employed in the barber-shop of Antolne R. 

A few days afterward, when I went to this shop for a shave, 
the conversation turned upon the experiments to which young 
Raymond had been submitted. He then suggested that I put 
him to sleep. We were all alone, his employer being away on 
military duty for a period of thirteen days at Perpignan. 

I did as the boy requested, and I had the satisfaction of suc- 
ceeding — a satisfaction all the greater because it was th^ first 
time I had ever tried to put any one to sleep. Young Raymond 
was, however, a remarkable subject, gifted with extreme sensi- 
bility and suggestibility. I had no trouble in repeating with 
him all the experiments which I had seen the professional 
hypnotist make. 

I went then very often to the barber-shop, for I was en- 
thusiastic about these experiments. 

One day it occurred to me to try the phenomenon of second 
sight. I had read articles about it, but they had left me very 
skeptical. It was on a Thursday, at about five o'clock In the 
afternoon. The owner of the shop, Antoine R., had not yet 
finished his period of thirteen days, having been gone only about 
a week ; he was, therefore, still in Perpignan. 

I told Raymond what I intended to try; and he agreed read- 
ily, being as curious as myself to know the result of these experi- 
ments. I at once put him to sleep, and ordered him to " see '* 



CLAIRVOYANCE 249 

his employer. It must have been, then, about quarter past five. 
After a few moments of silence, the subject said: 

'* I see him." 

"Where?" I asked. 

" He is in a cafe." 

"Which one?" 

" In the Cafe de la Mairie." 

"What is he doing?" 

" He is drinking absinthe." 

"Is he all alone?" 

" No ; he is with two other comrades." 

" Do you know them? " 

" No ; I do not know them." Then, changing his mind : 
" Ah, yes ! One of them I have seen here, for Saint-Ferreol." 

Having exhausted the questions I had to ask him concerning 
Mr. R., I told the subject to go to his home; and he said that 
he saw his mother attending to household matters, his brother 
sitting in the kitchen, etc. — in brief, mere banalities. I did 
not insist further; for I did not know how I could verify his 
statements. I woke him then, and told him all that he had said 
to me. He was greatly astonished ; for he remembered nothing 
of it. 

A few minutes afterward, I put him to sleep again, and sent 
him once more to look for his employer. 

" Do you still see Mr. R.? " I asked. 

** He is no longer in the cafe," the subject answered. 

"Where is he, then?" 

" He is walking." 

" Is he still with his two comrades? " 

" One of them has left him." 

"Which one?" 

" The one who was here for Saint-Ferreol." 

" Follow them as they walk. Where are they going? " 

" I do not know." 

" Very well. Tell me as soon as you know." 



250 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE FUTURE 

There followed a silence of about one minute. Then, sud- 
denly, the subject exclaimed: 

" They are going to have supper ! '* 

'* How do you know ? " 

" They are entering the Boule d'Or/^ 

I did not persist any further, but woke my subject, who 
appeared to be very tired. 

There now remained for me to verify the exactness of the 
facts which he had revealed. I knew that Mr. R. would re- 
turn two days later for a twenty-four-hour permission. I 
decided to wait for him at the railway-station, and to ask him, 
as diplomatically as I could, how he had spent the time between 
five and six o'clock that Thursday afternoon. And that I did. 
On the way, I said to him : 

*' Last Thursday, at about quarter past five, I saw you at 
Perpignan. You were in the Cafe de la Mairie, drinking ab- 
sinthe with two of your friends." 

Mr. R., looking at me, said simply: **Why did you not 
come over to speak to me? We should have been glad to have 
you with us." 

" I feared that I might intrude," I answered him. " Besides, 
I was in a hurry; I did not have time." 

" I am sorry. It would have pleased me to have you at least 
speak to me." 

*' By the way," I asked him, "who were your two friends? 
Has not one of them been here in Ceret? " 

" My comrades were F., who comes from here, but no longer 
lives here, and Charles M., a pastry-cook in Perpignan." 

" Which of the two was here for Saint-Ferreol? " 

" Oh, that was my friend Charles. I had invited him for the 
fete." 

" Then it was he who had left you when you went for supper 
with F. at the Boule d'Orf' 

At this question, Mr. R. looked at me in astonishment, ex- 
claiming : 



CLAIRVOYANCE 251 

" How do you know ? You followed me, then ? A few 
moments ago you told me that you were in a hurry! " 

I could not keep from laughing, and so was obliged to tell 
him how I had obtained the information. 

There was no doubt of the fact that Mr. R. had no idea 
whatever of hypnotic phenomena, for he did not believe me. 

" You are joking! " said he. " You are making fun of me! " 

I tried very hard to convince him that I had learned in no 
other way how he had passed his time ; but I could not succeed. 

" Well," I then said to him, " the essential thing for me to 
do now is to make you believe that what I have told you is true. 
As for the rest, since you are incredulous, I shall make you see, 
one of these days. I hope, then, that you will be convinced." 

"Oh, if I see it, I shall believe it," he replied; and we 
separated. 

The following Saturday, Mr. R. returned definitely to Ceret, 
his term of thirteen days having expired. When I went to his 
shop that day, he himself reminded me of my promise, and we 
made an appointment for Monday evening, after eight o'clock. 

I was careful not to miss the appointment. At eight o'clock 
I arrived at the barber-shop, and found, besides himself and 
his employee Raymond, three other persons. 

I put Raymond to sleep, and made him carry out different 
suggestions, to the astonishment of the assistants, who had 
never witnessed anything of the sort. Then I woke him. 

In the meantime, Madame R. appeared in the doorway of 
the shop. She stood for a moment, amazed, and then, address- 
ing her husband, without coming farther into the room, she 
said : 

" Antoine, you know where I am going." 

And without another word she left us. 

Then an inspiration came to me. 

" Does Raymond know where your wife is going? " I asked 
Mr. R. " Or what she is going to do ? " 



252 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE FUTURE 

" Certainly not. He knows nothing about it, for it is a 
matter between my wife and myself." 

"Very well," I said to him then; "if your employee tells 
you where your wife is going and what she intends to do, will 
you believe that he was able to tell me what you did at Per- 
pignan ? " 

" Oh, then I shall no longer doubt you." 

I put the subject to sleep immediately, and made him sit in 
an armchair. 

" Follow Madame R.," I ordered him. " Do you see her? " 

" I see her. She is going down the Rue Saint-Ferreol." 

" Good ! Follow her. Tell me what she does." 

After an instant's silence, he said : " She has stopped." 

"Where?" I asked. 

" At the foot of the street." 

"What is she doing?" 

" She is speaking." 

"With whom?" 

" With a woman." 

" Do you know this woman ? " 

" No; I do not know her." 

" Do you not know, then, what her occupation is ? " 

" Yes. She sells wine." 

" And where does she live? " 

" On the left-hand side, in going down." 

Then the idea came to me, since he saw the two women talk- 
ing, to make him understand what they were saying. 

" Very well," I said to him. " Since they are talking, listen 
to what they are saying, and repeat it to me." 

" I cannot hear them," he replied. 

" Listen ! " I insisted. " You will hear." 

"I hear nothing! " he repeated, this time raising his voice, 
and with a note of irritation. 

" I will you to hear ! " I ordered. 

Immediately, the subject's face changed expression. We saw 



CLAIRVOYANCE 253 

that a violent effort of his will was being made, the veins on 
his forehead swelled up; then, suddenly, with his whole body 
tense, in a strange, jerking voice, he uttered these two words: 

"Argent . . . Espagne!" ("Money . . . Spain!") 

At that he dropped back in the chair, as if utterly exhausted. 

I woke him immediately, a little frightened; and as he re- 
mained as if prostrated, I had to moisten his temples with a 
towel — something I had never had to do before. 

In the meantime, Madame R. returned, and came into the 
shop. I went to her immediately, before any one had a chance 
to speak a word to her. 

" Madame," I said, " is ft true that you have just come from 
the foot of the Rue Saint-Ferreol, where you found a wine 
merchant with whom you have talked — of money . . . 
Spain. . . ." 

Madame R. smiled, and explained to me at once : 

" Yes ; I have just been with Madame T. As I know that 
her husband must go to Spain this week, I went to ask him if 
he iwould take some Spanish coins that I have at home." 

(The circulation of Spanish copper money had for some time 
been prohibited in the department of the Pyrenees-Orientales, 
which was literally flooded with it.) 

Telepathy, so thoroughly and patiently studied by 
the English Society for Psychical Research, has cer- 
tainly an affinity with all the preceding phenomena, and 
notably with second sight, from which it differs, how- 
ever, in two main characteristics: (i) It Is always 
produced spontaneously; while second sight is nearly 
always provoked by an experimenter. ( 2 ) It empha- 
sizes rather the action of the object perceived; while 
second sight causes us to consider rather the knowl- 
edge manifested by the subject who perceives it. It 
seems that in telepathy the object goes to find the seer; 



254 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE FUTURE 

while in second sight the seer goes to find the object. 
But It can well be understood that in many cases the 
shade of difference between telepathy and second sight 
is hard to perceive. 

Memory, or at least knowledge of the past, can also 
assume a supernormal appearance. The name psy- 
chometry has been given, wholly improperly, to this 
faculty which certain mediums possess of retracing a 
sometimes long series of past events, of which they 
have no personal knowledge. This may be done in 
the presence of the individuals whom the events con- 
cern in a more or less direct way ; or it may be at the 
contact of objects having played some role in the events. 
Part of these effects may, it seems, be linked to divina- 
tion of thought, whenever the medium can read in the 
memory of the individuals, where the recollection of 
the events is retained in a latent state. But the case 
would appear entirely different, and comparable rather 
to a sort of second sight into space or temporal telep^ 
athy, when the medium, under the sole Influence of an 
object, or of the place in which he may be, is mentally 
transported into the past and takes part in events which 
happened long before. This was the experience of 
two English women who, visiting Versailles In 1901, 
" saw " the Petit Trianon as It was in the time of 
Marie- Antoinette. 

The future appears undetermined to us, at least so 
far as it depends upon our will; but can it, also, be the 
object of a sort of immediate vision? Can the future 
become the present in the mind of the medium? 

That is a formidable question, from the philosophi- 
cal and moral viewpoints; for the question of our free 



CLAIRVOYANCE 255 

will and our moral responsibility are themselves in- 
volved. 

One may find many examples of prevision and pre- 
monition, which are inexplicable by the normal faculties 
of induction and are verified by later events. It will 
be sufficient to cite two cases : 

One is that of Dr. Geley, of Annecy, who in 1894 
was a medical student at Lyon. On the 27th of June, 
at nine o'clock in the morning, while working in his 
room with a comrade, he was suddenly distracted from 
his work by this obsessing thought: " M. Casimir- 
Perier is elected President of the Republic by 451 
votes." (The electoral Congress assembled at mid- 
day, and the news was not known in Lyon until that 
evening.) 

The other case is that which Dr. Osty reports thus 
in his book. Lucidity and Intuition, as related by the 
seer herself: 

A year ago I made this prediction to a man who came to 
consult me for the first time: " I see you upon the point of 
departing for a voyage across the seas ... to America, prob- 
ably. I see you in the steamer, sad and alone; but you will 
not leave until later, after many boats have left for the same 
destination the port where you will embark." 

The gentleman answered me as follows : *' I actually am on 
the point of leaving France for America; so I admire your 
clairvoyant powers. But you have told me two things that are 
altogether improbable. One is that I do not take the first 
steamer. I have my ticket in my pocket, and everything is 
arranged that I leave the day after to-morrow. The second is 
that you see me sad and alone. I shall have my wife with me ; 
and if anything should possibly occur to keep her in France, my 
trip would be canceled." 



256 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE FUTURE 

Yesterday this gentleman returned to me. " Your prophecy 
was only too well fulfilled," he said. " The day after I came 
here to consult you, my wife was taken ill with pneumonia, and 
died a few days later. Then, left alone, I quitted France ; and 
I was, as you said, a passenger on the steamer, sad and alone.'* 

IV 

Let us review the principal circumstances or condi- 
tions in which clairvoyance, or metagnomy, is mani- 
fested under one or the other of its different forms. 

Even though it appears sometimes, abruptly and 
spontaneously, in the waking state, without the ordinary 
equilibrium of the mental and physiological faculties 
appearing in the least changed (especially in the case 
of telepathy) , it seems to have some special liaison with 
particular states of the nervous system more or less 
analogous to sleep, hypnosis, ecstasy, trance, etc., or 
even with ordinary sleep. 

Popular belief attributes a prophetic significance to 
certain dreams. In Cicero, for instance, there is the 
dream of that Arcadian who saw his friend first men- 
aced with death, then assassinated, and reached the 
gates of the town in time to stop the cart in which the 
murderers carried the body hidden under a heap of 
dung. 

But it is especially in the somnambulistic state, nat- 
ural or provoked, that metagnomic manifestations 
occur most often. Very often clairvoyance is revealed 
during an access of natural somnambulism; and the in- 
dividual in whom this faculty appears spontaneously 
is then brought to develop it by means of artificial som- 
nambulistic processes. 



CLAIRVOYANCE 257 

This, we believe, was the case of the famous som- 
nambulist Alexis, who was worth being studied with the 
greatest care, without the unfortunate prejudiced atti- 
tude which scientists manifest in considering all phe- 
nomena of this kind as being unworthy of their atten- 
tion. 

A more recent case was that observed by Dr. Ter- 
rien and presented by him in a communication made to 
the Society of Medicine, of Nantes, during 19 14. A 
young girl, fourteen years old, while doing some sew- 
ing for him, went to sleep spontaneously and began 
to recount all the doctor's actions at that moment. He 
had left with the intention of visiting one patient only, 
and had been delayed by three other, wholly unex- 
pected, visits. " She gave," said a witness, " the rea- 
sons for the departure from his original intention, the 
supplementary visits, the names of the patients, etc., 
without omitting the detail that a cultivator obstructed 
the doctor's way, and he had to stop on the road, thus 
delaying his return." 

Often, also, it is the mesmerist or hypnotist who in 
some way evokes the metagnomic faculty, in giving to 
the sleeping subject the imperative suggestion to see a 
certain person or a certain object. But in order to 
have the idea of making a suggestion of this kind, it is 
evidently necessary to know, or at least to believe, that 
metagnomy is possible. It is for want of this knowl- 
edge or this belief that experimenters imbued with the 
doctrines of official science pass right by the side of this 
phenomenon without seeing it. Very often it exists in 
their subjects, in a state of latent possibility, waiting 
only to be called upon. Although exclusive partizans 



258 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE FUTURE 

of suggestion, they ignore one of its most remarkable 
powers — the genesial power of metagnomy; or else 
they deny it, as being inexplicable by science, forget- 
ting that science is no more in a position to explain 
the curative power of suggestion, which none of them 
doubts for a minute. 

Let us remark, moreover, that suggestive action 
nearly always has to be completed by that of certain 
objects, which can even sometimes replace it. In order 
to direct his clairvoyant powers upon a given person, 
the subject must be en rapport with this person by 
direct contact with him or with an object which has 
belonged to him and is, so to speak, impregnated with 
his personality — a piece of Kis hair, or of his clothing, 
a letter written by him, etc. 

Also, the subject can, without the aid of any outside 
suggestion, place himself in a state of clairvoyance, 
either by gazing fixedly into a crystal globe (known as 
crystal gazing) ; or into a simple decanter of water — 
which, it is claimed, Cagliostro used; or into a " magic 
mirror "; or by any other process that may be desired. 
Is it not natural to suppose that the divining-rod and 
the pendulum play almost the same role in the develop- 
ment of the special metagnomy of water-diviners? 
And, if the lines of the hand, the cards, coffee-grounds, 
etc., have really any virtue, does it not consist in the 
property which these objects have to provoke in the 
medium the apparition of her natural second sight? 

In a word, the apparition of clairvoyance would ap- 
pear to be linked, in a way that is still mysterious to 
us, to certain ensembles of beliefs and practises which 
undoubtedly determine in their adepts a particular 




Givbc and Stand lent bv Dee & Fukushima, Inc., N. Y. 

CRYSTAL GAZING 

The subject, placing herself in a state of clairvoyance by gazing 
fixedly into the crystal globe, brings into play lemarkable powers of 
second sight, prophecy, etc., which normally are latent. 



CLAIRVOYANCE 259 

mental and nervous state, provocative of the metagno- 
mic faculties. 

The history of religions offers us numerous examples 
of clairvoyance, under all its forms — penetration of 
thought, second sight, telepathy, prophecy, etc. 

Similarly, metagnomy is produced very frequently 
in the course of spiritistic seances. Facts unknown to 
the medium, occasionally also to the assistants, and 
relative sometimes to objects and events of the present, 
sometimes of the past, and sometimes even of the fu- 
ture, are revealed, by the Intermediary of the table or 
the planchette, by means of automatic writing, or by 
the word of the medium In a trance. And these reve- 
lations appear to proceed from a personality distinct 
from all those of the participants of the seance, from 
a spirit capable of perceiving. In conditions absolutely 
different from those of this life, the material organiza- 
tion of their senses and their brain, consequently as 
manifesting what might be called " transcendental me- 
tagnomy.'* 

IV 

In the presence of a mass of facts so extraordinary 
as these, the first Inclination of our intelligence is to 
deny or to doubt; and when It seems forced upon us 
to recognize the reality, at least of some among them, 
we immediately demand the explanation. 

How are such phenomena possible? 

That is the question that our Intelligence asks Insist- 
ently; and we are surprised, Impatient, not to receive an 
answer; at least we are not satisfied to accept precipi- 
tately the first apparent solution that is offered to us. 



26o THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE FUTURE 

But the true scientific spirit consists in being disinter- 
ested, at least temporarily, in the need for an explana- 
tion, and in being reduced voluntarily to a sole research 
— slow, persevering, obstinate — of the determinism 
of the phenomena. 

In the eyes of the scientist, the most Ingenious, the 
most intrinsically coherent, theory is, by Itself, without 
value and without Interest; it constitutes even an 
obstacle and a danger to science, if it merely aids the 
mind to represent to itself facts already known. In a 
way that pleases it and so, satisfying Its curiosity, dis- 
penses with all further Investigation. The sole reason 
for existence, we do not say of theories but of hypothe- 
ses, in all experimental study, is to make possible the dis- 
covery of facts still unknown, In permitting us to insti- 
tute a series of new experiments ; and these hypotheses 
must always conserve the character, not of explana- 
tions, in the real sense of the word, but of simple 
interpretations, always subject to revision and to con- 
trol. 

In general, the explanations or Interpretations which 
are given of the metagnomic phenomena consist in 
linking all the forms of clairvoyance to one among them 
(that which the author of the explanation or interpre- 
tation has more particularly. If not exclusively, stud- 
led), and in considering this, sometimes as a primary 
fact, as an Incontestable law established by experimen- 
tation; sometimes as an extremely probable induction, 
which Imposes Itself by Its analogy with other laws 
already acquired to science; and sometimes as a neces- 
sary deduction of a theory dogmatically affirmed. 



CLAIRVOYANCE 261 

This last case is that of a certain number of spiritists 
who, admitting the existence of spirits and their inter- 
vention in things of this world as a certain truth, attrib- 
ute to spirits not only the facts of " transcendental or 
spiritoidal metagnomy," but all the facts of supernor- 
mal knowledge, under whatever forms and in whatever 
circumstances they may be produced. The clairvoyance 
of the subjects and mediums would come to them always 
from an exterior and super-terrestrial source; it would 
be always a revelation emanating from the Beyond, 

More in favor with the majority of contemporary 
psychists is the explanation which links all the forms 
of metagnomy with the fact of thought-penetration or 
mental suggestion. This fact would appear henceforth 
sufficiently proved by observation and experimentation, 
and it is believed that it may be established as a law, 
capable of explaining completely the diversity of the 
particular cases. 

It would be sufficient, therefore, to admit that there 
exists a possibility of intercommunication of minds, 
which would itself undoubtedly have as a necessary con- 
dition an intercommunication of brains. And thus not 
only psychometry would be explained, but also telepathy 
and vision at a distance. 

Expressed in terms of a physical order, the hypothe- 
sis may be said to admit that each human brain emits 
special radiations, correlative to its thoughts, conscious 
or unconscious, of rays susceptible of being arrested in 
transition by another brain, and of reproducing the 
thoughts of the first brain. The rays are capable also, 



262 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE FUTURE 

perhaps, of making impressions of material objects and 
of storing them, as sound vibrations are stored in the 
discs of a gramophone. But there is not in this hypoth- 
esis direct metagnomic vision of material objects. 

" Lucidity,'* said Dr. Osty, " is not a monopsychic 
phenomenon. Its production necessitates the har- 
monious working of two brains : the one furnishing the 
psychic force, the other Its exceptional sensibility, react- 
ing to the excitation received and reconstituting it Into 
its original form of thought." 

The early mesmerists admitted, on the contrary, two 
distinct forms of metagnomy: one subjective, the pene- 
tration of thought; the other objective, vision at a dis- 
tance. 

It Is not only human brains which emit metagnomic 
radiations; all the objects of nature do so. To the 
" C-rays " which link brain to brain It Is necessary to 
add the " O-rays " which link object to brain, these 
two being twin forms of the same energy, whose na- 
ture is still unknown to us, and which Relchenbach 
named od or odyle. 

Thus each human brain would act as a center to 
which all the rays from other brains and from all points 
of the universe would arrive, when It would have the 
possibility, thanks to this universal intercommunica- 
tion, of perceiving what happens in every mind and In 
every place. For want of the necessary conditions, 
this possibility remains latent. But let these conditions 
be realized, and metagnomy becomes apparent. 

This natural mechanism is no less marvelous than 
that which makes possible wireless telegraphy and 
telephony. 



CLAIRVOYANCE 263 

What good, however, does It do for us to linger upon 
these views? 

For all those who desire to hasten the accession of 
psychical studies in the domain of science, there is a 
more urgent task: that of collecting such a mass of 
authentic and concordant facts that the most opinion- 
ated skepticism cannot fail to give way before the evi- 
dence; and that of deducing the elements, from which 
our posterity may find perhaps, some day, the definite 
explanation. 



CHAPTER XII 

SPIRITISM AND CRYPTOPSYCHISM 
I 

Are there actually real facts, capable of being con- 
trolled and scientifically studied, which come under the 
heading of spiritism? 

This question is answered in the negative only by 
those who are wholly ignorant of the matter. 

The researches of such observers as Professor 
Thury of Geneva, the Count de Gasparin, the members 
of the Dialectic Society of London — among whom 
must be mentioned the mathematician De Morgan and 
the naturalist Wallace — the researches of the great 
physician and chemist, William Crookes, of Professor 
Charles Richet and Professor Flournoy, and of still 
many others, have definitely placed beyond all possible 
contestation the reality of spiritistic phenomena. 

Inasmuch as the word spiritism, although generally 
employed, is nevertheless equivocal, we have proposed 
for this order of phenomena the name spiritoidal, for 
this has the advantage of eliminating any prejudging 
of the intimate nature or the causes of the phenomena. 

Contrary to the prejudices which still exist, we con- 
sider that not only respect but encouragement should 
be given to those scientists who devote their energy to 

bringing a little light into this still dark and mysterious 

264 



SPIRITISM AND CRYPTOPSYCHISM 265 

corner of nature. Instead of deriding their enterprise, 
it would be better to recognize their courage and disin- 
terestedness, for they conduct these difficult studies in 
the hope of making new discoveries of great importance 
to the widening of science and the progress of the hu- 
man mind. 

The scientific study of spiritism, or spiritoidal phe- 
nomena, should be conducted ( i ) by observing the 
greatest number of spiritistic facts, while taking all 
possible precautions to guarantee their authenticity; 
(2) by classifying them in series, in order to bring out 
the relations which may exist between them; (3) by 
deducing, from these relations, the formulas to express 
them. 

In a word, we must apply to spiritistic facts that 
scientific method, with the necessary modifications of 
detail, to which the natural and physical sciences have 
owed their success. The real scientific spirit, we can- 
not too often repeat, consists in the elimination of the 
need for an explanation, and in limiting one's efforts to 
determining the phenomena. The object of the sci- 
entist is not to learn why certain phenomena exist, and 
why they are thus and not otherwise ; it is to learn how 
it is possible for him to influence them, to provoke them, 
to prevent or modify them, as well as to foresee them, 
and ultimately to utilize them in possible applications 
to the needs of human activities. 

This does not mean that the scientist should not try 
to understand the facts that he witnesses. On the con- 
trary, if he would discover their determinism, if, 
through appropriate experimentation, he would inter- 
rogate Nature and compel her to answer, it is indis- 



266 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE FUTURE 

pensable that he use reasoning and imagination. 
Hence the inevitable intervention of directing ideas in 
experimental research; hence the constant use of the 
hypothesis, not to explain hut to interpret the phenom- 
ena as the knowledge acquired upon certain of their 
rapports may enable us, as it were, to anticipate future 
knowledge of certain others. 

In the field of spiritoidal facts the seeker finds him- 
self brought, more or less rapidly, before two possible 
interpretations, both suggested by the facts themselves. 
These are the spiritistic interpretations and the crypto- 
psychic interpretation. 

II 

The principal characteristic of spiritoidal facts is 
that they seem to imply the intervention, in things of 
this world, of intelligent, invisible beings who are not 
normally part of our world. 

Because of this appearance, it could be said that the 
first interpretation suggested is the spiritistic. This is 
the interpretation that was adopted by the first observ- 
ers; and it is also that given by casual observers who 
have no scientific training, and by those who, consciously 
or unconsciously, consider these facts as having no pos- 
sible relation to science. 

The cryptopsychic interpretation, on the contrary, 
supposes doubt of the reality of the appearance pre- 
sented by spiritoidal facts. It is an idea of the second 
period, 3, reflection provoked by the comparison of 
this order of facts to all the rest of our experience. 
The facts which we have known hitherto — astronomy, 
physics, chemistry, physiology — are the result of nat- 



SPIRITISM AND CRYPTOPSYCHISM 267 

ural causes, forming, together, a closed and coherent 
system, belonging to a same world. And those which 
imply intelligences, consciousnesses, are linked. In a 
constant order, to that system of matter and motion 
wherein all reality appears to be enclosed. 

It is, therefore, more in keeping with the tendencies 
and the general method of science to suppose, until 
proof to the contrary, that these special, spiritoidal 
facts, in appearance the outcome of intelligent causes, 
unknown and outside of nature, are in reality pro- 
duced by known and intelligent causes belonging to na- 
ture, although acting in a hidden manner, as if screened 
from direct observation. 

This is but an application of the great principle 
which, since Descartes, has dominated and directed all 
modern science: i. e., the supposition that the unknown 
can always be made known ; that In the realm of things 
certain, already demonstrated and verified, the reason 
of things still uncertain can be sought and found. 

Yet intelligent causes, absolutely natural and visible, 
certainly Intervene in spiritoidal facts. They are the 
human beings In whose presence these facts are mani- 
fested. Hence, instead of attributing to spiritoidal 
facts the Intervention of hypothetical beings — spirits 
of the dead, elementals, angels, demons, etc., the reality 
of whom we have no proof — science, if she would be 
faithful to her principles, must first of all connect them 
with the forces and faculties of the human beings — 
the sitters, and the mediums in particular. It is true 
that mediums are thoroughly unconscious of Interven- 
ing actively in the production of these phenomena ; for 
they believe that spiritistic phenomena are produced in 



268 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE FUTURE 

or through them, unknown to themselves and without 
their participation, through forces foreign to their con- 
sciousness, and often contrary to their own will. But is 
this an illusion with them? 

The study of hypnoidal facts, similar to the spirit- 
oidal although not presenting their characteristic ap- 
pearance, proves that, in certain circumstances human 
beings may think and act and manifest aptitudes hith- 
erto unsuspected, unknown to themselves, and without 
the possibility of their attributing the facts to them- 
selves. 

It is, therefore, quite natural that those who study 
spiritism, or spiritoidal phenomena, in a scientific way 
should first of all apply the cryptopsychic interpreta- 
tion, and should reject it only when its application has 
been proved incontestably false. It must also be ad- 
mitted, however, that in the majority of cases this in- 
terpretation agrees perfectly with all the particu- 
larities of the phenomenon to which it is applied. 

The following, quoted from Esprits et mediums^ by 
Professor Flournoy, is a typical example: 

Madame Dupond, a well-bred and cultured lady from Ge- 
neva, of literary taste and philosophical and religious leanings, 
took up the study of spiritism at the age of forty-five. She 
tried automatic writing, and, at the end of eight days, was 
able to get the names of dead relatives and friends, who gave 
her messages of a philosophico-religious nature. About three 
days later, after having received various communications, her 
pencil wrote suddenly, and quite unexpectedly, the name of a 
young Frenchman she knew — Rodolphe X., who had recently 
entered a religious order in Italy. As she did not know that 
he was dead, she was surprised and shocked; but her hand 



SPIRITISM AND CRYPTOPSYCHISM 269 

continued to write, confirming the sad news in the following 
circumstantial details: 

" I am Rodolphe. I died last night at eleven o'clock, the 
23rd. I had been ill for several days, and I was not able to 
write. I had an inflammation of the lungs, caused by a sudden 
change in the weather. I died without pain, and I have been 
thinking of you. ... I am in space. ... I see your parents, 
and I like them also. Good-by. ... I am going to pray for 
you. ... I am no longer a Catholic, I am a Christian." 

After her first astonishment, Madame Dupont believed more 
and more in the authenticity of this message, because for almost 
a week she continued to receive communications from Rodolphe, 
making numerous allusions to their past relations. She had 
met Rodolphe, who was then a priest, during a stay in the 
South the preceding spring. He had returned from Italy, where 
he had spent the winter on account of his poor health, and had 
stopped a few days at the same hotel. Between this Genevese, 
a confirmed Protestant and republican, and this man from the 
north of France, an ardent legitimist and Catholic, in spite of 
the difference in their ages (he was scarcely twenty), a real 
moral and intellectual intimacy was formed, as a natural con- 
sequence of the analogy of their temperaments and the unity of 
their idealistic aspirations. Each of them had tried, without 
success, to convert the other to his own ideas; and when they 
were separated, they had continued this discourse by corre- 
spondence, even after Rodolphe had entered the religious order, 
pouring out their souls to each other in full confidence. At 
the moment of Madame Dupond's automatic writing, it was 
Rodolphe who owed a letter to his friend. 

Do we not see there an excellent case of the apparent 
intervention of a " discarnated spirit " — to use the 
expression familiar to the partlzans of the spiritistic 
doctrine — In the affairs of this world? Unfortu- 



270 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE FUTURE 

nately, six days after the first communication from the 
supposed dead man: 

. . . there reached her by post a letter from Rodolphe, who, 
far from being dead, was in perfect health. It shook Madame 
Dupond's recent spiritistic convictions so thoroughly that she 
was discouraged from pursuing further such disconcerting ex- 
periments. 

It is necessary to read in Professor Flournoy's book 
the detailed and penetrating analysis to which he has 
submitted all the circumstances of this interesting case, 
and which fully justifies, we think, the conclusion he has 
reached: viz., that all the communications received by 
Madame Dupond reflected her own dispositions, con- 
scious or not, and corresponded exactly to those which 
could not fail to be in her. " She alone, in other words, 
and not Rodolphe, was dead at that moment, and can 
be considered as the real source of the communica- 
tions." 

Ill 

One would be inclined to generalize this conclusion, 
in order to extend it to all spiritoidal phenomena, by ex- 
amining one after the other the many different kinds, 
and not stopping to explain the manifest analogies 
which link them to the ensemble of other parapsychic 
phenomena. 

From the classification which we have given in Our 
Hidden Forces, the parapsychic phenomena can be 
divided into three great classes, which follow one after 
the other, in the order of their increasing complexity 
and difficulty: 



SPIRITISM AND CRYPTOPSYCHISM 271 

( 1 ) Hypnoldal phenomena. 

(2) Magnetoldal phenomena. 

(3) Spiritoidal phenomena. 

Spiritoidal phenomena, when disregarding all hy- (^ 
potheses as to their origin, do not differ essentially from 
the others; for there can always be found, for each of 
them, a correspondent of the same kind in the series 
of hypnoidal or magnetoidal phenomena. 

For example, the state of trance in a medium is en- 
tirely analogous to the state of hypnosis of a subject put 
in catalepsy or somnambulism; it presents almost the 
same physiological and psychological elements. There 
is between them little difference except this: The 
trance is produced and developed spontaneously, with- 
out the intervention of any visible operator, under the 
sole effect of the nervous and mental conditions in which 
the medium is placed, and among which the belief in 
spirits and the expectation of their intervention would 
appear to play a considerable part. The hypnotic state 
is produced experimentally, artificially, by a visible oper- 
ator, a hypnotizer, who undoubtedly utilizes the men- 
tal and nervous dispositions of the subject; for mani- / 
festly the subject's voluntary action is the cause which 
unlocks the phenomenon and directs the successive de- 
velopments — without its necessarily being a question 
of spirits here any more than in an experiment in physics 
or chemistry. 

It is true that, in many cases, the medium does not 
appear to have undergone any change, either physically 
or mentally, and neither he himself nor any of the 
assistants doubts the role that he plays in the phenome- 
non. This is established by the disappearance of the 



272 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE FUTURE 

phenomenon immediately that the medium is absent, 
and his presence is sufficient, on the contrary, to pro- 
duce it, in spite of all the variations which can have 
place in the entourage. 

But any one who is at all familiar with the experi- 
mental study of hypnoidal phenomena well knows that, 
if these phenomena are usually manifested in a special 
state, analogous to sleep, there is nevertheless an in- 
finity of degrees between this state and that of waking, 
and that the greater part of those that are observed in 
the state of hypnosis can equally be observed in a state 
which cannot by any apparent sign be distinguished 
from the waking state. In particular, it is always 
possible, after having put a subject to sleep, to make 
him open his eyes merely by suggesting to him the con- 
tinuation of sleep, and to put him thus in a state which, 
to the uninformed onlookers, will present all the char- 
acteristics of the waking state. 

Similarly, the messages obtained from supposed dead 
people — whether by means of the table, by automatic 
writing, or by any other process — singularly resemble, 
if we omit their spontaneity and separate them from 
the spiritistic atmosphere which surrounds them, the 
facts of dissociation of the personality, artificially pro- 
voked by such experimenters as Professor Pierre Janet, 
and of which we have given numerous examples in 
Our Hidden Forces. 

Also, the facts of thought-reading and clairvoyance, 
so frequently found in the reports of spiritistic seances, 
have their analogies in the facts of perceptive tele- 
psychism, or, as it is sometimes called, psychometry. 

If perhaps we are still incapable of producing experi- 



SPIRITISM AND CRYPTOPSYCHISM 273 

mentally the phenomena which compose what may be 
called the physical side of spiritism — movements of 
levitation, of translation, etc., produced by mediums 
upon material objects, apparitions of light and of form, 
materializations, which are observed, or believed to be 
observed, in certain spiritistic seances — we have never- 
theless reports of phenomena of the same kind, which, 
although equally spontaneous, are at least produced in 
circumstances from which all spiritistic element is com- 
pletely absent. 

From this comparison between ( i ) spiritoidal facts 
and (2) hypnoidal and magnetoidal facts, a double con- 
sequence would seem to proceed: 

First: All the facts which constitute spiritism may 
be resolved by analysis into hypnoidal and magnetoidal 
facts, differing from these in that they are produced 
spontaneously instead of being evoked by the experi- 
menter, and also In that they appear linked to certain 
ideas and beliefs: viz., spiritistic ideas and beliefs, con- 
scious or unconscious, in the individuals or the sur- 
roundings where they are observed. Spiritism ap- 
pears, therefore, as a spontaneous synthesis of all, or 
almost all, the parapsychic facts, determined by a cer- 
tain particular nervous and mental state, to which, 
perhaps, might be given the name spiritogene, first used, 
I believe, by Professor Flournoy in Esprits et mediums. 

From this it is seen that science, faithful to the prin- 
ciple of economy, prefers — until proof to the contrary 
: — to consider the spiritoidal facts as reducible to facts 
of the preceding orders, or at least that it is forced to 
recognize their reduction as far as possible. It is that 
which explains, and in a large measure justifies, the atti- 



274 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE FUTURE 

tude of the majority of scientists interested in this 
study, and their visible partiality for the cryptopsychic 
interpretation. 

Second: Even in admitting the hypothesis of the 
existence of spirits and their effective participation in 
the genesis of the spiritoidal phenomena, it would be 
very necessary to assert that the whole action of these 
spirits consists only in arousing in certain susceptible 
subjects (mediums) the majority of the hypnoidal and 
magnetoidal phenomena (hypnotism, suggestion, disso- 
ciation of the personality, telepathy, clairvoyance, etc.) 

— phenomena that are constated in ordinary subjects, 
and produced either spontaneously or as the effect of the 
action of an experimenter. 

It can thus be said that spirits operate in exactly the 
same way that human hypnotizers and magnetizers do. 

Therefore, those scientists specialized in the study 
of the parapsychic phenomena, who do not exclude a 
priori the hypothesis of spirits but recognize that the 
existence of such agents, however improbable It may be, 
is not necessarily impossible, affirm that, from the point 
of view of the method^ the study of spiritoidal phe- 
nomena must be strictly subordinated to that of the 
phenomena of the two preceding orders (hypnoidal 
and magnetoidal), and that it is only when these have 
been carried sufficiently far that one begins to see the 
way a little clearly in the phenomena of the third order 

— spiritoidal. 

IV 
It is true that there remains an unsolved problem the 
force of which increases in proportion to the number of 



SPIRITISM AND CRYPTOPSYCHISM 275 

splrltoidal facts over which the cryptopsychic interpre- 
tation extends its influence. This problem might be 
formulated thus: 

How is it that spiritistic practises — undoubtedly 
with the aid of the beliefs which accompany them — are 
sufficient to cause the appearance in a large number of 
persons, often with extraordinary rapidity, of an abund- 
ant production of parapsychic phenomena, varied and 
really marvelous, while the most able experimenters 
have trouble in provoking even a feeble part of these 
phenomena by the most efficacious of their processes? 

It is not unusual, in a spiritistic seance that is even a 
little successful, to observe the facts of thought-read- 
ing, of clairvoyance, of the exteriorization of the mo- 
tricity, of materialization, etc., assembled all together 
in one spontaneous synthesis, the secret of which wholly 
escapes us. 

It is, perhaps, the realization of this enigma which, 
in these last few years, has brought a certain number of 
scientists — such as William James, Sidgwick, Frederic 
Myers, Hodgson, and many other members of the So- 
ciety for Psychical Research of London — to look 
favorably upon the spiritistic interpretation. There 
is a very curious evolution in that; and the proof of it 
is shown in a book by the great English scientist, Sir 
Oliver Lodge, The Survival of Man} 

It is known that the Society for Psychical Research, 
after a long investigation of telepathy and other para- 
psychic phenomena, which was begun in a strictly scien- 
tific spirit and without any particular leaning toward the 

'^The Survi'val of Man, by Sir Oliver Lodge (New York: MoflFat, 
Yard and Company). 



276 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE FUTURE 

spiritistic doctrine, has seemed to advance by degrees 
toward conclusions conforming to this doctrine. This 
is shown in the writings of its members, and especially 
in the important work of Frederic Myers, Human Per- 
sonality, 

But Frederic Myers and his colleagues, It might be 
said, were not real scientists, and their assertions had 
not, could not have, In the eyes of the public, that 
authority which now Is necessary In science and In those 
who act as Its representatives; they were philosophers 
and litterateurs who, It might be believed, merely 
skirted rather than penetrated the true scientific spirit. 

Sir Oliver Lodge Is purely a physicist, whose re- 
searches have been in electricity and wireless teleg- 
raphy, and his works In this special field have given 
him a world-wide scientific reputation. 

But this physicist does not hesitate to declare his 
conviction that " man survives death " — a conviction 
founded, according to him, upon the observation of a 
long series of natural facts ; and he considers that " In 
the future, the hour will come when this belief will be 
scientifically established." 

What are these natural facts which can determine in 
a scientist like Sir Oliver Lodge a conviction which 
appears so contrary to that held by the great majority 
of his confreres? 

First of all, the facts of thought-transmission and 
telepathy. His book contains numerous and signifi- 
cant examples, drawn often from his own experience. 
He says : 

I am prepared to confess that the weight of testimony is 



SPIRITISM AND CRYPTOPSYCHISM 277 

sufficient to satisfy my own mind that such things do un- 
doubtedly occur; that the distance between England and India 
is no barrier to the sympathetic communication of intelligence 
in some way of which we are at present ignorant; that, just 
as a signaling key in London causes a telegraphic instrument to 
respond instantaneously in Teheran, so the danger or death of 
a distant child, or brother, or husband, may be signaled, with- 
out wire or telegraph clerk, to the heart of a human being 
fitted to be the recipient of such a message. 

There follow certain facts of automatic writing, as, 
for example, those that the medium, Madame Newn- 
ham, exhibited in the waking state. Sir Oliver Lodge 
says: 

The instructive feature about this case was that the minds 
apparently influencing the hand were not so much those of 
dead as of living people. The advantage of this was that they 
could be catechized afterward about their share in the trans- 
action; and it then appeared that they either knew nothing 
about it or were surprised at it ; for though the communications 
did correspond to something in their minds, it did not repre- 
sent anything of which they were consciously thinking, and 
was only a very approximate rendering of what they might 
be wishing to convey. 

The author concludes that this action, by which one 
intelligence communicates with another, does not ema- 
nate from conscious regions of the mind, but from those 
of the subconsciousness of dreams, whether it be the 
action of the living or of the dead. 

" Since," says he, " the living communicant Is not 
aware of what Is being dictated, so the dead person need 
not be consciously operative." 



278 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE FUTURE 

But, then, can It not also well be supposed that the 
impression received, Instead of coming, as pretended, 
from a dead person, emanates from a third person, 
or even that it had for Its origin — according to Sir 
Oliver Lodge's own expression — a central Intelligence, 
some anima mundi, to which would be connected all the 
Intelligences that we know, and by which they would be 
influenced, a " sort of universal receptacle In which all 
thoughts and all intelligences, past and present, would 
be represented and conserved " ? 

Sir Oliver Lodge confesses, however, very loyally, 
the failure of an experiment from which he hoped to 
prove the possibility of communication between the 
living and the dead. Frederic Myers had sent him 
in January, 1891, a sealed envelope in the hope that 
after his death the communication contained in the 
envelope would be able to be given by means of a 
medium. Many different messages obtained by a well- 
known medium, Madame Verrall, and coming sup- 
posedly from Frederic Myers, led them to believe that 
they represented this communication. The envelope 
was opened In December, 1904, and " it was found that 
there was no resemblance between its actual contents 
and what was alleged by the script to be contained In 
it." 

Even had the experiment Itself succeeded, it would 
have proved nothing ; for the success might well have 
been due to clairvoyance — which was probably the 
solution, also, of a case described by Kant in Dreams 
of a Spirit Seer: 

Madame Herteville (Marteville), the widow of the Dutch 



SPIRITISM AND CRYPTOPSYCHISM 279 

Ambassador in Stockholm, some time after the death of her 
husband, was called upon by Croon, a goldsmith, to pay for a 
silver service w^hich her husband had purchased from him. 
The widow was convinced that her late husband had been much 
too precise and orderly not to have paid this debt, yet she was 
unable to find the receipt. In her sorrow, and because the 
amount was considerable, she requested Mr. Swedenborg to 
call at her house. After apologizing to him for troubling him, 
she said that if, as people claimed, he possessed the extraordi- 
nary gift of conversing with the souls of the departed, he 
would perhaps have the kindness to ask her husband about 
the silver service. Swedenborg was quite willing to comply 
with her request. Three days later this lady was serving ^ 

coffee to some callers, when Swedenborg arrived and informed 
her, with his usual sang-froid, that he had conversed with her 
husband. The debt had been paid several months before his 
decease, and the receipt would be found in a bureau in the 
room upstairs. The lady replied that the bureau had been 
thoroughly searched, and the receipt had not been found 
among all the papers. Swedenborg then said that her hus- 
band had told him that if the lefthand drawer were pulled out 
a board would be seen, and if this were raised it would dis- 
close a secret compartment, containing his private Dutch 
correspondence, as well as the receipt. Upon hearing this de- 
scription, the whole company went with the lady to the room 
upstairs. The bureau was opened; the board was raised, dis- 
closing the hidden compartment, the existence of which no one 
had ever suspected ; and, to the great astonishment of all, the 
papers were discovered there, just as Swedenborg had described. 

It may be worth while, perhaps, to cite a strange and 
really enigmatic fact, reported and analyzed in Sir 
Oliver Lodge's book under the caption of " The Mar- 
montel Case " : 



28o THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE FUTURE 

On December ii, 1901 — toward the end of the first year 
in which Mrs. Verrall had developed the power of automatic 
writing — her hand wrote as follows : 

Nothing too mean, the trivial helps, gives confi- 
dence. Hence this. Frost and a candle in the dim 
light. Marmontel, he was reading on a sofa or in 
bed — there was only a candle's light. She will 
surely remember this. The book was lent, not his 
own — he talked about it. 

Then there appeared a fanciful but unmistakable attempt at 
the name Sidgwick. 

Mrs. Sidgwick, widow of a well-known member of the 
Society for Psychical Research, questioned by letter, replied 
that she knew nothing about the matter but would report if 
she came across the name Marmontel. 

The same day that this reply was received, Mrs. Verrall 
felt obsessed by the desire to write. She obtained a second 
message : 

I wanted to write. Marmontel is right. It was a 
French book, a Memoir, I think. Passy may help, 
Souvenirs de Passy, or Fleury. Marmontel was not 
on the cover — the book was bound and was lent — 
two volumes in old-fashioned binding and print. It 
is not in any papers — it is an attempt to make some 
one remember — an incident. 

In January, 1902, Mrs. Verrall happened to write to a 
friend of hers named Mr. Marsh, asking him to come for a 
week-end visit; and he replied fixing March ist. 

Mrs. Verrall then reports as follows: 

On March 1st Mr. Marsh arrived, and that evening at din- 
ner he mentioned that he had been reading Marmontel. I 



SPIRITISM AND CRYPTOPSYCHISM 281 

asked if he had read the Moral Tales j and he reph'ed that it was 
the Memoirs. I was interested in this reference to Marmon- 
tel, and asked Mr. Marsh for particulars about his reading, 
at the same time explaining the reasons for my curiosity. He 
then told me that he had got the book from the London Library, 
and took the first volume only to Paris with him, where he read 
it on the evening of February 20th, and again on February 
2 1 St. On each occasion he read by the light of a candle; on the 
20th he was in bed, on the 21st lying on two chairs. The 
weather was cold, but there was, he said, no frost. The London 
Library copy is bound, as most of their books are, not in modern 
binding; but the name " Marmontel " was on the back of the 
volume. The edition has three volumes; in Paris Mr. Marsh 
had only one volume, but at the time of this dinner he had read 
the second also. 

As to the words *' Passy or Fleury," Mr. Marsh, on 
his return to London three days later, verified the fact 
that in the chapter of the Memoirs he had read on 
February 21st, while lying on two chairs, there was a 
description of the finding at Passy of a panel, connected 
with a story in which Fleury plays an important part. 

The most remarkable thing in this case is that the 
fact recounted in the past in the medium's message of 
December 11, 1901, had not at that date taken place, as 
it was not produced until February 20, 1902 — two 
months later. 

Sir Oliver Lodge Is not mistaken In seeing, not a case 
of prevision, testifying to the remarkable parapsychic 
faculties of the medium, but a case of hypnotic sugges- 
tion, executed automatically under the influence of a de- 
ceased person who was desirous of giving to his col- 
leagues of the Society for Psychical Research a proof 



282 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE FUTURE 

of survival; and he proposes to us, hesitatingly enough, 
It Is true, the following hypothesis: 

An outside or, let us say, a subliminal intelligence gets the 
record made by Mrs. Verrall that an unspecified man will read 
Marmontel on a frosty night lying on a sofa by candle light, 
etc., and then sets to work to try and secure that within the 
next two or three months some man shall do it — some one 
who is sufficiently a friend of Mrs. Verrall to make it rea- 
sonably likely that in subsequent conversation she may sooner 
or later hear of the circumstance. 

A difficulty here Is that one might have to admit the 
possibility of an anticipated vision of future events — 
a possibility energetically denied by certain contem- 
porary philosophers. But there would be greater dlfH- 
culty In admitting the reality of supernatural Interven- 
tions such as those of so-called spirits. On the other 
hand, cases of " distant vision into space " are less 
scarce than usually supposed. Myers, in his Human 
Personality y cites a very significant fact: 

Madame MacAlpine, an the shore of a lake, suddenly be- 
came chilled and cramped. At this moment she saw before 
her a dark cloud, in the midst of which was a tall man, who fell 
into the lake and disappeared. Several days later she learned 
that a Mr. Espy, tall and clothed identically as in her vision, 
had fallen into the lake and been drowned. His drowning 
occurred several days after Madame MacAlpine's vision; but 
It appeared that Mr. Espy had, some time ago, conceived the 
idea of committing suicide by drowning in the lake. 

It is not rare, moreover, to find In the visions of cer- 
tain psychometrists transpositions of time and space, 



SPIRITISM AND CRYPTOPSYCHISM 283 

quite similar to that of the '' Case of Marmontel." 
The following is quoted from the work of Edmond 
Duchatel: 

On July 31, 1909, we placed in the hands of Madame L. F., 
when in the state of somnambulism, a certain object belonging 
to a person whom we knew to be in London. This is what 
the psychometrist said : " I see this person in the country, and 
in the mountains. She is reading as she walks, but in the depths 
of her heart she is sorrowful. I see another lady, who would 
like to call her Bichette (she always calls her so), and ask her 
why she sighs. The lady who is called Bichette is neither tall 
nor strong; she is French, and is about forty years old." 

We undertook to verify these statements. They were in- 
exact at the time of the experiment, July 31, 1909. They 
were, however, found to be exact thirty-five days later. The 
descriptions were precisely as they occurred, even to the name 
of the person, which, by the way, was the means of identifying 
the conditions of this prophetic scene. 

The author adds that Madame L. F. also made the 
following statement: *' Many people have come back 
to me again to say that what I had^escribed to them, 
although not exact at the time, inyambly became true 
about two months afterward." 

Sir Oliver Lodge makes use of such facts as the 
preceding merely to conclude by analogy — as did 
Frederic Myers — that telepathy (the action of the 
mind of a living individual upon another mind, without 
the intermediary of the organs) leads to spiritism 
(more or less an identical action from the mind of a 
person deceased) . 

Unfortunately, of all the reasonings the least demon- 



( 



284 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE FUTURE 

strative is that by analogy which, left to itself, can only 
give birth to hypotheses. 

It is, therefore, very difficult to see anything but the 
expression of an hypothesis, the proof of which remains 
to be made, in this passage from Sir Oliver Lodge in 
which he explains the motive an operator situated in 
the Beyond, such as Sidgwick, has in using the " scrip- 
tural mechanism " of another person: 

It may be a scientific interest surviving from the time in this 
life when he was a keen and active member of the S. P. R. ; so 
that he desires above all things to convey to his friends, engaged 
on the same quest, some assurance, not only of his continued 
individual existence . . . but of his retention of a power to 
communicate indirectly and occasionally with them, and to pro- 
duce movements even in the material world — by kind per- 
mission of an organism, or part of an organism, the temporary 
use or possession of which has been allowed him for that purpose. 

Can one say that Sir Oliver Lodge has obtained, in 
conditions really satisfactory to himself, a proof that 
the deceased members of the Society for Psychical Re- 
search have endeavored to collaborate with their living 
colleagues in order to find a solution to the mystifying 
problem of the survival of the personality after death? 

This proof certainly cannot be found in the pages 
where he describes and analyzes the mediumship of 
Mrs. Piper; although there is to be found there an im- 
portant and extraordinary contribution to the study of 
spiritoidal phenomena. The author still hesitates, 
however, between many different hypotheses: 

There is no doubt that Mrs. Piper in a state of trance reaches 
certain sources of information. She finds knowledge of events 



SPIRITISM AND CRYPTOPSYCHISM 285 

which have taken place a long time ago or at a distance. But 
the question is to know how she acquires this knowledge. Is 
it in going back into time and space, and in witnessing these 
events as they occur? Or is it by means of information re- 
ceived from the actors still in existence? They themselves, 
however, do not remember them, or else only imperfectly so. 
Is it through the influence of contemporaneous intelligences, 
absorbed as they are by other thoughts, and keeping in reserve 
in their brain a mass of forgotten information which they 
oflFer unconsciously to the perception of the person in a state 
of trance? Or is it that as long as the state of trance exists 
they are receptors of a sole, universal intelligence, of which 
all ordinary consciousnesses, past and present, are but a part ? 

Opinions may differ upon the point of knowing which is 
the least extravagant supposition. It is possible to invent a 
simpler hypothesis, but actually my feelings are that no explana- 
tion can be given to all the facts. We are, it seems, at the 
beginning of what is, in reality, a new branch of science. To 
psetend to forge explanations, except to try to relate the facts 
among them and to open a new field of experimentation, is as 
premature as it would have been for Galvani to explain the 
nature of electricity, or for Copernicus to attempt an explana- 
tion of the laws of comets and meteors. 

It is especially in the last chapters of his book that 
Sir Oliver Lodge speaks of the supposed communica- 
tions between his deceased colleagues and himself, 
obtained through Mrs. Thompson, Mrs. Piper, and 
Mrs. Grove. But these communications, nearly al- 
ways confused, reveal the intimate details of a character 
which easily causes a conviction in the minds of those 
who, having known the communicators when living, 
believe that they recognize them by these very details. 
For those who simply read the accounts of them, they 



286 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE FUTURE 

remain almost incomprehensible and in any case un- 
convincing. Sir Oliver Lodge says: 

It is an error to believe that there exists anything sensational 
or particularly moving in these communications. The conver- 
sation resembles that over a telephone ; it is subject to the same 
disagreeable interruptions, to the same periods of surprising 
clarity, such as a happy expression, an intonation, an unexpected 
detail revealing without possible error an identity — real or 
manufactured — as, for instance, an appropriated surname, a 
banal remembrance. Similarly, the parents of the communi- 
cator, if they are present, may really be moved. 

This undoubtedly is true. But it is equally true that 
others may remain unmoved. 

We shall not insist upon the ingenious theory of 
" cross-correspondences," whose principal characteris- 
tic is that a sole communicator, or control^ is supposed 
to manifest himself through several different mediums, 
writing automatically, quite independent of one an- 
other, distant from one another and often strangers; 
they also may be kept ignorant of the nature of the 
correspondence sought. In many cases the messages 
thus obtained, isolatedly, are unintelligible and do not 
reveal any sense until later, when combined. Thus a 
full message does not exist in any living intelligence, for 
not until the different parts of the communication have 
been collected does their meaning appear. 

The aim of these efforts, according to Sir Oliver 
Lodge, is to prove clearly that these phenomena are the 
work of some well-defined intelligence that is distinct 
from that of any of the mediums, excluding the possi- 
bility of a mutual telepathic communication between 



SPIRITISM AND CRYPTOPSYCHISM 287 

them and establishing, as far as possible, by the sub- 
stance and quality of the messages, that they really 
are characteristic of the particular personality from 
whom the communication appears to emanate, and of 
none other. 

But has this aim been attained? 

** The question," says the author, " can be definitely 
and conclusively settled only with time and much 
effort." 

In spite of all these cautious reservations, Sir Oliver 
Lodge remains personally convinced that " as the best 
working hypothesis at the present time it Is legitimate 
to grant that lucid moments of intercourse with de- 
ceased persons may In the best cases supervene." He 
considers, for his own part, as entirely established 
although formulated as an hypothesis, the reasoning 
which he enounces as follows : " Intelligent Inter- 
course between minds other than those of incarnated 
human beings and ourselves has become possible." 
And he expresses his belief in this startling compari- 
son: 

The boundary between the two states — the known and the 
unknown — is still substantial, but it is wearing thin in places ; 
and like excavators engaged in boring a tunnel from opposite 
ends, amid the roar of water and other noises, we are begin- 
ning to hear now and again the strokes of the pickaxes of our 
comrades on the other side. 

Will all these hopes be confirmed by later researches 
of science? Will the spiritistic interpretation of phe- 
nomena so strange and hardly believable for all those 
who have not observed them directly, supplant finally 



288 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE FUTURE 

the cryptopsychic interpretation, contrary to the opin- 
ion hitherto prevalent among the majority of scientists? 
This is a secret which the future alone will reveal. 



APPENDICES 



NOTE I 

SCIENCE AND MAGIC 
(From La Magie science naturelle, by Carl du Prel) 

Belief in magic is as old as humanity. 

Religious and profane history, during all the cen- 
turies and among all the nations, shows us that some 
men distinguished themselves among their contem- 
poraries by certain incomprehensible methods of reas- 
oning, by the domination of nature's forces and of 
other men. According to the very different applica- 
tion of their faculties in the moral order of things, 
these men were called saints, prophets, magicians, sor- 
cerers, miracle workers, etc. In a general way they 
might be called ma^i. Because, however, of the great 
number of these stories and the unquestionable testi- 
mony of many cases, we refuse to qualify them as fa- 
bles. If, in our own times, we have shrunk from a 
belief in magic, it is owing to the progress of modern 
sciences, the Increasing tendency of which has been to 
develop themselves Into closed systems; and unfortu- 
nately such systems reject all facts which cannot enter 
Into them. 

Taking Into consideration the universal law of cau- 
sality, It Is perfectly clear that the word magic Is for the 
scientific researcher but the provisional denomination 
of certain human faculties which have not hitherto 

291 



292 APPENDICES 

been sounded, and that magical phenomena cannot be 
otherwise than based upon a natural science as yet un- 
known to us. It is logical, therefore, to think that, on 
account of its spontaneous development, modern science 
will eventually end In magic, and become magic itself, 
in so far as it will pass from the position of examining 
that which is visible, tangible, and welghable, to that 
which is invisible, intangible, and unweighable. For, 
the more that matter is found In a refined state — as, 
for instance, radiant matter — the more it will be 
found to possess remarkable powers. It Is easy for 
us to be convinced of this fact, In physics as well as in 
psychology, for have we not hypnotism at our disposal 
to show us the points of contact between science and 
magic — In other words, between natural science as 
we know It and natural science that we do not know? 

Progress in this direction cannot fail to be rapid, for 
magic Is but a line of projection In science. Especially 
when feeling the necessity for widening their system 
scientists will undertake the study of magic, which pos- 
sesses certain laws that are still entirely ignored. The 
man who limits his vision to the study of natural phe- 
nomena explained by known laws of nature obtains but 
a superficial progress; whereas the one who directs his 
energies toward the clarification of problems still ob- 
scure will enable others to reach the hidden center of 
things, thereby compelling the widening and transform- 
ing of existing systems of thought. 

Those, therefore, who exclude magic from their in- 
vestigations remain walled In a system which is but 
provisional and which limits the horizon of progress. 
For this reason It Is very regrettable that science and 



APPENDICES 293 

magic are regarded as being opposed to each other, 
whereas in truth they complete each other advantag- 
eously. It is by working in the two directions that one 
can be convinced of this; for on the one side the reg- 
ularity of the magical phenomena will be recognized, 
while on the other will be seen the progressive magical 
advancement of natural science. 

Without retracting anything that has been said be- 
fore, and without expecting too much from those read- 
ers whose starting-point has been In natural science, it is 
possible to meet their doubts and skepticisms. I do 
not attribute to man the gift of certain magical powers 
as understood in the Middle Ages, when every marvel 
and sorcery, every magical practise — legitimate or 
illegitimate — was explained by the supernatural help 
of an angel or a demon. It Is not necessary to have 
recourse to this solution. The possession of magical 
faculties is a natural endowment of man. Agrippa 
of Nettesheim recognized this fact long ago : Spiritus 
in nobis, qui viget, ilia facit. And they have a physical 
basis : they are not supernatural but supersensible ; and 
their investigation should be our principal object. 

These magical faculties are latent in us; conse- 
quently, they must have manifested themselves before 
their discovery and scientific examination. To allay all 
hesitation in this direction, I have laid less stress upon 
practical magic — as yet a premature undertaking — 
than upon examples of an Involuntary, natural, and 
spontaneous nature, which demonstrate the regularity 
of their production in conditions always similar. I 
also hope that I have established the principal bases of 
magic, once and for always : Magnetism is the key to 



294 APPENDICES 

physical magic; mono-ideism, or the exercise of 
thought joined to volition, is the key to psychological 
fnagic. 

The only way to reach an understanding of practical 
magic is to study the natural examples of magic, to ob- 
serve the conditions of their manifestation, and to 
adapt them artificially afterward. Superstition, it is 
true, has unfortunately given a wrong aspect to prac- 
tical magic, for it did not take Into consideration the 
natural reality and regularity of its manifestations. 
But we discover their germ of truth and their natural 
scientific regularity when, comparing them with nature 
— cum mundi codice primario, originali et autographo, 
said Campanella — we recognize the concordance of 
the artificial product with the natural and spontaneous 
manifestation. 

The reader's first doubts will vanish when he sees 
innumerable examples of natural magic being produced 
by experimentation, and realizes that natural science 
has reached a degree where magical phenomena are 
explained — as, for instance, clairvoyance through the 
Roentgen rays, telepathy through wireless telegraphy, 
fascination through the power of suggestion, and sor- 
cery through the exteriorization of the sensitiveness. 
He will finally reach the conclusion that If modern 
science were in a state of perfection there would be 
no more room for magic; and that It is by the study of 
these same facts, called magical because they are con- 
trary to our theories, that we shall be in a position to 
reach our goal all the sooner. 

If the reader believes that our system of nature 
has uttered its last word, it would be better that he 



APPENDICES 295 

should lay my book on one side; for in spite of all our 
discoveries and inventions, however wonderful these 
may be, we are, I believe, but at the beginning of sci- 
ence, and the more we shall dig into the secrets of 
nature the more marvelous we shall find her. Let us 
recognize that the forces hitherto unknown seldom are 
latent forces which are never manifested; rather are 
they active forces constantly manifesting themselves 
according to certain well determined conditions. 

Apples fell from the tree long before Newton dis' 
covered the law of gravitation. Therefore it must he 
equally true that natural examples of magic existed 
long before any one believed in them. It must be 
recognized that phenomena in contradiction to natural 
laws already known are constantly produced, though 
they are nevertheless submitted to the law of causality 
because they correspond to certain unknown laws of 
nature. 

This brief review, I hope, may reconcile medieval 
superstition, which was mistaken only when interpreting 
the explanation of the facts, with modern science, which 
to-day, as in former times, makes the mistake of deny- 
ing a priori certain facts that It will be forced to accept 
finally, after having found the explanation in spite 
of itself. 



NOTE II 

THE RELIGIOUS PROBLEM AND THE PSYCHICAL 

SCIENCES 

(Extract from the Revue philosophique, April i, 191 5) 

To-day we are witnessing an attempt at the creation, 
or at least the organization, of a new order of sciences 
— the psychical sciences. Being en rapport with psy- 
chology on the one hand, and the historical and socio- 
logical sciences on the other, they have as their object 
certain more or less extraordinary and apparently mar- 
velous and mysterious phenomena which are spon- 
taneously produced in our midst and are visibly re- 
lated to unknown, or imperfectly known, forces and 
faculties of man's moral and physical nature. Al- 
though in some respects they appear to be more fre- 
quent to-day, under the particular forms in which they 
manifest themselves, they have nevertheless always 
been present and have ever played an important and 
more or less considerable role in the history of hu- 
manity. 

Religious life at all times and in all countries has 
been replete with examples. For this reason it is quite 
natural to ask whether the sciences which have as their 
object the study of these phenomena, should not be 
called upon to furnish, sooner or later, the indispensa- 
ble elements necessary for the solution of the religious 

problem of the present time. 

296 



APPENDICES 297 

First of all, what idea must we form of these sci- 
ences which most savants refuse to consider seriously, 
and which have to dispute their very existence to char- 
latanism, superstition and incredulity? 

Let us try to orientate our steps in the path obscured 
by a pell-mell ensemble of psychical phenomena. It 
would seem that we might distinguish three orders of 
phenomena, which are superposed one upon the other 
as they advance farther into the realms of mystery. 
Some are already known and defined by laws; others 
are still uncertain and contested, but at least not outside 
of the circle of nature; while still others appear to 
draw us out of this circle, upon a plane ordinarily sepa- 
rated from that in which our life and activities are man- 
ifested. This classification may be summarized in 
three names: hypnotism^ animal magnetism, spirit- 
ism. Or, to use terms which we have proposed else- 
where, we may call them: hypnoidal phenomena, 
magnetoidal phenomena, spiritoidal phenomena. 

Unfortunately, current opinion too often confounds 
these distinct branches of psychical sciences, and it is 
not infrequent to hear that spiritism is the study of the 
phenomena of hypnotism or animal magnetism. One 
might as well say that an astronomer is a physicist or a 
zoologist. 

The phenomena of the first order — hypnoidal phe- 
nomena — comprise the following: (i) Suggestion, 
as practised by the School of Nancy, in which the action 
of the spoken word or of the gesture Induces in certain 
Individuals, perhaps In all, a state of credulity or do- 
cility more or less abnormal. (2) Hypnotism, as de- 
scribed by the School of the Salpetriere : that Is, a state 



298 APPENDICES 

of torpor or of automatism provoked In certain subjects 
by means of special physical processes — the fixation 
of the gaze upon a brilliant object, pressure exerted 
upon a given part of the body, etc. (3) Dissociation 
of consciousness or cryptopsychism, so masterly de- 
scribed by the eminent Dr. Pierre Janet, where one sees 
the consciousness of an individual being projected, or 
two or several " selves '' are coexistent or succeed each 
other in one and the same individual. All these phe- 
nomena, however marvelous and baffling In nature, 
do not compel us to suppose the existence of other 
causes or faculties than those we already know, and 
which appear possible of explanation by these very 
causes or faculties, in supposing only that. In certain 
particular conditions, they operate according to given 
laws which are as yet unknown, laws more or less dif- 
ferent from those we already know. 

The phenomena of the second order — magnetoidal 
phenomena — appear, on the contrary, to Imply the 
Intervention of forces still unknown, unclassified, but 
physical in nature and more or less analogous to the 
radiating forces known in physics, such as light, heat, 
electricity, magnetism, etc. They may be classified as 
animal magnetism on the one hand, and telepsychism on 
the other, according to whether the action of these 
forces is being exerted In proximity through the In- 
termediary of the entire nervous system, or at a great 
distance, without Intermediary, by the sole action of 
thought. 

Although the majority of scientists admit the reality 
of the phenomena of the first order there are few who 
are willing to consider magnetoidal phenomena as real 



APPENDICES 299 

or at least as distinct from hypnoidal phenomena. 
Hypnotic suggestion, It Is true, may produce effects simi- 
lar to those produced by magnetism; but when taken 
separately and closely examined they will be found to 
be specifically different and distinct. Thus animal mag- 
netism can produce certain movements of attraction, 
repulsion, anesthesia, contraction, etc., in a blindfolded 
subject without the use of speech by the sole pres- 
entation of the hand from a distance. The passes, 
by which the mesmerist awakes or Induces sleep in a 
subject, owe their efficacy to this same psycho-magnetic 
force, which appears to be polarised^ as is electricity, 
and which is also capable of effecting appreciable cures. 

Not only are human beings susceptible to this action, 
but also animals and plants. Quite recently it has 
been proved that certain organic matter can be pre- 
served from putrefaction by the sole action of the 
passes or by the imposition of the hands. The proper- 
ties of this psycho-magnetic force have also been com- 
municated to material objects; this would explain, for 
example, the curative action of magnetized water. 

It is especially under the form of telepathy and sug- 
gestion that the scientists of to-day have unconsciously 
brought back the much-disputed question of mesmerism 
and animal magnetism. The English and American 
Societies for Psychical Research have gathered a great 
number of authentic cases where the " Image " of a 
person, more often when on the verge of death, has 
appeared to a relative or friend in spite of the enormous 
distances separating them. It is as if an immediate 
and spontaneous communication were established be- 
tween them — in conditions as yet unknown, and an- 



300 APPENDICES 

alogous to conditions In which wireless telegraphy and 
telephony take place. 

The phenomena of the third order — spiritoidal phe- 
nomena — take us Into a region still more obscure and 
mysterious. They present themselves to us with an 
appearance that Is often Illusory, always enigmatic 
and disturbing, Implying the Intervention of Intelligent 
forces, not supernatural hut extra-natural, which do not 
belong to our world In a normal way, but which seem 
suddenly to make an irruption on a plane of nature 
foreign to that in which we move and have our being. 

Whatever interpretation we may give to these phe- 
nomena, however, our first duty Is to make sure of 
their reality. Let us beware of subordinating the ac- 
cept^t4©« of these facts to any theory brought for- 
ward in explanation of them. 

With the exception of certain phenomena — such as 
hauntings, which should be the object of special investi- 
gation — the spiritoidal phenomena seem always to 
have as their necessary condition the action or the pres- 
ence of individuals called mediums. There are two 
kinds of mediums, although these may belong alter- 
nately to one or the other category: the mediums who 
produce effects of an Intellectual nature, and those who 
produce effects of a physical nature. Both physical and 
intellectual effects are found In the ordinary table lift- 
ing or table turning: movements of rotation, nutation, 
translation, etc., and the words, phrases, and speeches 
which are dictated by these movements. These effects 
appear distinctly separated when considering, on the 
one hand, those obtained by Mrs. Piper, which are 
remarkable for the exactness of the Information given 



APPENDICES 301 

upon the relatives and antecedents of utter strangers 
who visit her; and, on the other hand, the extraor- 
dinary phenomena produced by Eusapia Palladino, who 
causes heavy objects to move from a distance, the pro- 
duction of phosphorescent lights In utter darkness, and 
projections from her body of various materialized 
forms, etc. 

It must be observed, furthermore, that Intellectual 
mediumism presents the same phenomena as those ob- 
tained by hypnotism and animal magnetism — disso- 
ciation of the personality or cryptopsychism, thought- 
reading, clairvoyance, etc. — though different In their 
character of apparent spontaneity, and by their rela- 
tion to certain spiritistic practises and beliefs. But 
whatever interpretation may be adopted for this third 
order of facts. It cannot be denied that they are ex- 
tremely closely related to those of the two preceding 
orders and that they come under the direction of similar 
or communal laws. 

From the ensemble of these facts two hypotheses 
suggest themselves, the first of psychological or mental 
order, the second of physiological or physical order. 
The Important thing Is to know that there exist In the 
human soul certain faculties of perception and of super- 
normal action. These faculties are usually subcon- 
scious, or cryptoidal, active under conditions as yet Im- 
perfectly defined; nevertheless they are real and are 
active In all beings. There also exist in the human 
organism certain unknown forces which are, as it were, 
the physical agents of these faculties, and which. In 
the ordinary state of things, are equally cryptoidal. 

Shall we go farther still ? Shall we admit the exist- 



302 APPENDICES 

ence, outside of ourselves, of one or several Intelligent 
entities, capable of collaborating with us in the pro- 
duction of certain psychical phenomena mainly through 
the bringing into play of our faculties and supernormal 
forces ? 

How shall we conceive these entities ? Are they the 
souls of the dead? Are they cosmic intelligences, or, 
as In the conception of the Greeks, demons? Are they 
elementals, larvae, astral microbes as the occultists call 
them? Or are they that universal intelligence which 
humanity calls God? 

The psychical sciences, which hardly dare to ask the 
questions, are still very far from replying to them. 
Are these sciences, however, capable of bringing a use- 
ful and practical solution to the religious problem? 
This is the point upon which we shall particularly in- 
sist. 

It is necessary to distinguish, for the facility of study, 
two inseparable questions. One corresponds to the 
viewpoint of the savant or the philosopher; the other 
to that of the believer, or of man in general: according 
to whether one considers the exterior phenomenology of 
religions, or the intimate and profound cause of the 
religious sentiment. 

From the first point of view there is not the slightest 
doubt that the sciences of religion will find In the 
psychical sciences a most appreciable help for the orien- 
tation and advancement of their own researches. 

The history of religions abounds in strange and 
marvelous phenomena which the historian at first shirks 
from mentioning, as being incredible and impossible, 



APPENDICES 303 

or if he must admit them, he explains them as being a 
result of misunderstandings and frauds — as the ra- 
tional critics of the eighteenth century explained them. 
The knowledge of psychical phenomena, as a direct 
result, will have the effect of widening the conception of 
thaumaturgical religious facts, in showing that they 
may have a certain reality without attributing to them 
a supernatural character. 

William James has said that the recent study of hyp- 
notic phenomena has enabled scientific men to admit of 
the possibility of miraculous healing, so far as being 
considered a result of suggestion. The stigmata of 
hysterical patients has made it possible to accept those 
of St. Francis of Assisi. And stories of " possessions '* 
are now credible since we have cases of demonomania. 

Similarly, on studying closely the life and character 
of the men who have founded or renovated certain 
religious movements, it is seen that, according to Wil- 
liam James, " the manifestations of the religious life 
often possess a close rapport with the subliminal life. 
The temperament of the nevropath appears in the 
various religious biographies. It would be difficult 
to enumerate the names of religious initiators without 
mentioning phenomena of automatism which they mani- 
fested. I do not speak of the prophets and the der- 
vishes only. ... I speak of those of superior mind, 
the creators of ideas. Saint Paul had visions, ecstasies. 
He was gifted with the power of glossolalia, although 
he attached but little importance to it. All the great 
reformers, the great saints, the great heretics — Saint 
Bernard, Fox, Wesley, Luther, Ignatius of Loyola — 



304 APPENDICES 

had visions, voices, ecstasies, fiery revelations, etc." 

Thus we can trace in the history of rehgions all the 
psychic phenomena, clothed, as it were, under a religious 
cloak, although preserving under this form evident 
analogies to phenomena of hypnotism, cryptopsychism, 
animal magnetism, telepathy, and spiritism. 

Who cannot but be struck by the similarity between 
ecstasis and hypnosis? We find in both of them the 
same state of mono-ideism, anesthesia, transfiguration. 
Does not religious faith engender, as does hypnotic sug- 
gestion, visions, stigmata, seemingly miraculous cures? 
And does not divine inspiration, as well as diabolical 
possession, present singular similarities with the crypto- 
psychic phenomena or those of the dissociation of the 
personality? 

William James, in speaking of the similarity of con- 
version and hypnotic suggestions^ says that if you place 
under the influence of suggestion, as Professor Coe did, 
a subject who combines in him the following three fac- 
tors: (i) a profound sensibility; (2) a tendency to 
automatism; (3) the capacity to submit passively to 
suggestion, you may be sure that you will obtain a sud- 
den conversion. 

Magnetoidal facts, also, can be traced in the history 
of religions. Can we not recognize them in the atti- 
tudes and gestures of certain Egyptian rites, as also in 
the great importance attributed by Christian liturgy 
to the imposition of the hands and to the breath? 

In the healing of the hemorrhoidal woman, as re- 
lated in the Gospels, Jesus acts and speaks not only as 
would a modern hypnotist, but also as would a profes- 
sional magnetizer. In the words of St. Luke : 



APPENDICES 305 

And a woman having an issue of blood twelve years, which 
had spent all her living upon physicians, neither could be healed 
of any. 

Came behind him, and touched the border of his garment: 
and immediately her issue of blood stanched. 

And Jesus said, Who touched me? When all denied, Peter 
and they that were with him said, Master, the multitude throng 
thee and press thee, and sayest thou. Who touched me ? 

And Jesus said, Somebody hath touched me: for I perceive 
that virtue is gone out of me. 

And when the woman saw that she was not hid, she came 
trembling, and falling down before him, she declared unto him 
before all the people for what cause she had touched him, and 
how she was healed immediately. 

And he said unto her. Daughter, be of good comfort: thy 
faith hath made thee whole; go in peace. 

The cure, according to Jesus, was therefore the effect 
of two concurrent causes: on the one hand, the virtue 
emanating from him; and on the other, the faith of the 
patient. In other words, it was animal magnetism 
(Mesmer's doctrine) and suggestion (the doctrine of 
the School of Nancy). 

Similarly, in the order of telepsychlsm, such facts 
as those of thought-penetration, prevision, distant- 
seeing — of which there are too many authenticated 
accounts to doubt their existence Indefinitely — help us 
to understand the phenomena of prophetism, the gift 
of tongues, etc., of which every religion is replete with 
examples. 

Even the singular facts observed with spiritistic 
mediums of physical phenomena are to be traced in the 
lives of certain religious personalities. Apparitions, 



3o6 APPENDICES 

bilocations, levitatlon, and hauntlngs are facts which 
belong in common to religious sciences and to psychical 
sciences ; and it is to be hoped that the latter may help 
the former to determine their real signification. 

We are not yet in a position to state that the psychical 
sciences, in their present state, are capable of throwing 
much light upon the essential basis of religion. The 
religious idea and the religious sentiment, taken in them- 
selves, seem to be independent of all these more or less 
pathological phenomena. It is, we believe, in the 
higher aspirations of the normal faculties of human 
nature that religion has its deep and perhaps inde- 
structible roots. 

Let us see, however, whether we cannot find an hy- 
pothesis by which the psychical sciences may give us 
some useful information regarding the origin and des- 
tiny of religion in humanity. It is in the realm of 
spiritoidal phenomena that this hypothesis should be 
sought. 

In the actual state of our knowledge, those who have 
tried to understand these phenomena hesitate between 
two interpretations: (i) that which would explain 
them by the sole faculties of the medium who operates 
subconsciously; (2) that which believes they are mani- 
festations of intelligences external to our world — in 
other words, the animistic or cryptopsychic interpreta- 
tion and the spiritistic interpretation. On the one side 
are Drs. Pierre Janet, Flournoy, and Richet; on the 
other side, Frederic Myers, Sidgwick, Hodgson, and 
Oliver Lodge. 

Up to the present time the scale has seemed to incline 
in favor of the first interpretation, the only one that 



APPENDICES 307 

might a priori be acceptable, as it is the only one in 
accord with the fundamental postulates of the scientific 
method. But we might well suppose that in the 
course of time the second interpretation will be found 
to be the right one. Were its partisans to establish 
definitely and unquestionably that we are in relation 
with a spirit from the Beyond, really distinct from our 
own spirit and not the creation of our subconsciousness 
this would undoubtedly be an immense step forward in 
the solution of these problems. 

There would still remain, however, many other 
problems to be solved. 

First of all, the identity of the spirit should be 
established. Usually they give the names of deceased 
persons; but are they to be believed? May they not 
assume the mask of some one known to us in order to 
enter Into relationship with us? Many facts seem to 
justify this hypothesis. Who would be so bold as to 
maintain the identity of controls giving the names of 
Stanton Moses, Rector, Imperator, Victor Hugo, etc. ? 
Often, also, they take the ideas and emotions of those 
to whom they are supposed to communicate them. 

And this is exactly the point in favor of the crypto- 
psychlc interpretation. But our reasoning is in line 
with the hypothesis, where this hypothesis were aban- 
doned as insufficient to give an account of certain par- 
ticularities of the facts already observed. From this, 
who could fail to suppose, for the explanation of cer- 
tain religious facts, that there exist several cosmic in- 
telligences capable of Interesting themselves In the lives 
of humans and of intervening, during certain epochs, in 
order to direct religious evolution? Hence the mir- 



3o8 APPENDICES 

acles and the revelations, which take different forms 
according to their different milieux: Buddhist, Mo- 
hammedan, Roman Catholic, Protestant, etc. They 
would be, for instance, those unknown entities trans- 
forming themselves into St. Michael and Ste. Catherine 
with Joan of Arc; into the Holy Virgin with Berna- 
dette, etc. One might thus reach an explanation of 
certain facts belonging to the history of religion. But 
this hypothesis would not in any way bring us nearer 
to true religion, to the ideal religion: that which con- 
sists in adoring God, praying to him in spirit and in 
truth. 

Let us suppose it possible to prove that It is really 
the souls of the dead which come back to assure us of 
their existence. What would be the consequence of 
such a certainty, from the religious point of view? 

Perhaps it would be the justification of the doctrine 
which places the origin of all religions in the worship 
of the dead, in what might be called primitive spirit- 
ism, that of the savages, ancestral worship as In China, 
etc. Perhaps it would mean, also, the restoration of 
such beliefs and practises In our own times. Thus reli- 
gious evolution would complete Its circle and come back 
to its starting point. 

To many, In fact, spiritism forms a veritable reli- 
gion. Are there not to be found In America, England, 
and elsewhere, spiritualistic churches which count their 
followers by the thousands? In France this movement 
seems less Intense and Is not so widely spread. But If 
a new form of religion were to appear in the midst of 
present-day humanity, and were to develop sufficient 
power and Influence to compete seriously with existing 



APPENDICES 309 

forms of religion, It would seem that this new religion 
would spring from the very heart of spiritism. 

Modern spiritism will undoubtedly differ from the 
ancient in its scientific and moral character. Neverthe- 
less It will be founded upon the belief of the survival 
of the dead, and upon the possibility of communicating 
with them by the intermediary of quasi-magical proc- 
esses. 

But can religion reduce itself to the sole dogma of 
a future life and the immortality of the soul? Is not 
the dogma of the existence of God more essential, 
solely essential, as William James puts it? 

The spiritistic hypothesis offers, In itself, a means to 
find the very existence of God. If the spirits are in 
accord in teaching us, In proving to us, such an exist- 
ence, it must be the revelation of God through the 
spirits. There is Indeed something quite startling in 
this community of belief between the living and the 
dead; yet one should know what kind of God it Is that 
the spirits reveal, and more especially what kind of 
proofs they bring us of the truth of their beliefs. 
They may come back from the Beyond, but their knowl- 
edge, which may be more extended than ours, is never- 
theless just as relative as our own. 

Yet, if our spirit can, in its subliminal expression, 
enter into communication with other spirits, can it not 
also feel the presence of some Greater Spirit? Can it 
not have, at certain moments, the intuition of a Su- 
preme Presence, the presence of the Supreme Being, 
Absolute and Infinite, Source of all Truth, of all Good 
and Beauty? This would appear to be the thought of 
William James: "Although he may be beyond the 



310 APPENDICES 

limits of the individual being who is en rapport with 
him in religious experience, ' the Greater ' is a part of 
his subconscious life within his own limits." 

Even if we identify the phenomenon of religion 
with a phenomenon of telepathy between God and the 
soul of the believer, the religious problem remains as 
tantalizing as heretofore, and its solution, quite apart 
from science, is a matter of sentiment and of faith. 
Every intuition is, in essence, ineffable and incommuni- 
cable. Where the objective verification is lacking, it 
will remain forever impossible, according to Alfred 
Fouillee, to distinguish the seer from the visionary. 

But whatever progress may be accomplished in the 
psychical sciences, and whatever may become of the 
various forms of religion which actuate humanity, for a 
long time yet and perhaps always, in the heart of man 
shall remain the supreme Ideal of Justice and of 
Sanctity. And side by side with this will be the enig- 
matic inscription found by the apostles of early Chris- 
tian times, which perhaps neither time nor space will 
efface : '' To God Unknown.** 



NOTE III 

THE RADIATION OF THE HUMAN BRAIN 
(From La realite du monde sensible, by Jean Jaures) 

As the brain is enclosed in an organic envelope, solid 
and in appearance closed, the imagination has a tend- 
ency to picture it as being isolated from the exterior 
world. But, in reality it may be that what we call the 
brain is perpetually mixed and confounded with the 
world, through a subtle and constant exchange of secret 
activities. 

We already have seen that for the man who would 
look from without upon the brain perceiving the light, 
the brain would extend, physiologically speaking, to the 
focus of light lost in the mysterious depths of the night. 
It would be, as it were, like a comet with condensed 
nucleus, its tail sweeping into space. 

When we look at another human being, we send to- 
ward him a ray of light from our soul, heavy with 
anger, or soft with tenderness. Evidently, then, our 
cerebral activity is spread into space; it widens, yet it 
loses none of its precision, none of its organization. 
Those who imagine that our brain is entirely contained 
in the cranium are much mistaken. 

With this point of view, all the phenomena — still 
obscure and imperfectly controlled — of magnetism, 
distant vision, and suggestion would contribute to 
give us a better idea of our brain. 

311 



312 APPENDICES 

If It be true, as has been affirmed by reliable experi- 
menters, that the human organism Is capable of de- 
veloping a magnetism sufficient to lift a table from the 
ground, that It Is especially through the exercise of 
the will that such phenomena are obtained, and that 
It Is unconsciously that these persons are capable of 
generating a motor-force of unknown nature upon ex- 
terior objects, It would be quite true also that this cere- 
bral energy Is capable of radiating far out of Its focus. 
It appears, too, that the " self " Is capable of exerting 
an action upon ordinary matter without having re- 
course, at least consciously, to the Intermediary of the 
organism, which would act, then, not as an active In- 
strument but as a passive conductor. 

The phenomenon of second-sight has been demon- 
strated without any doubt In certain hypnotic cases. 
Subjects can see and read through a barrier which for 
others remains opaque. Therefore the opacity of mat- 
ter Is but relative. And, as In the case of our Imagina- 
tion, that which most separates our brain from the sur- 
rounding world, Is the opacity of our organism. When 
this opacity Is removed It leaves our cerebral focus and 
the universe In Immediate contact. 

Thus the brain can radiate and act far beyond the 
limits of the human organism. It does not appear any 
longer as an organ shut off and enclosed In a bony cav- 
ity. We now behold, in the order of physiology even, 
the individual " self " widening out and, without losing 
Its ordinary connections with a particular organism, 
creating for itself, outside of this organism, an Indefi- 
nite sphere of action. 

Specialists have not yet been able to control the trans- 



APPENDICES 313 

mission of thought from one subject to another, with- 
out the intermediary of speech; but this fact has been 
attested by a great number of serious experimenters. 
In itself it constitutes a prodigious achievement which 
must be separated and distinguished absolutely from 
spoken suggestion ; for the latter resorts to well known 
physiological and psychological processes. 

When, however, a subject transmits, without the use 
of speech, an idea, a thought, an impression, or a 
volition to another subject, there must evidently exist a 
radiation of thought into space; for two brains are 
thus placed in immediate relation, through this very 
radiation. Thus the precise form of our thought is 
propagated through space without alteration, as are the 
forms of light, color, shade. In a word, our brain is, 
as it were, a focus of thought; and even as the sun fills 
all the spheres which its light occupies, and it would 
be futile to reduce the sun to being but a globe from 
which its light emanates, so the brain's sphere where 
the action of its thoughts may extend, is of an ampli- 
tude unknown to us. 

It does not seem to me that all these phenomena 
are studied with a sufficiently philosophical attitude of 
mind, or, more exactly, metaphysical; one is occupied 
only with the moral and social consequences which the 
practise of suggestion entails; and it is certain that 
the problem of " free-will " is again foremost, in view 
of these facts. 

But apart from this, these phenomena are of greater 
import: they attest that there exist In man certain ex- 
traordinary and unknown forces which are nil, or al- 
most so, in his normal state, but which are manifested 



314 APPENDICES 

in certain cases that we may call abnormal. There 
exists in us an " unknown self " capable of exerting a 
direct action upon matter, of lifting a foreign body 
with an energetic will, just as if it were its own body, 
of piercing by a look the opacity of walls, and of gath- 
ering from afar and through space the unexpressed 
thought of another *' self." 

We may ask whether we may not have here the 
elements of a new progress in the consciousness and 
the life of humanity. Why should evolution, for the 
actual and normal man, have reached its ultimate term? 

It would suffice to incorporate in man's normal be- 
ing the prodigious forces which hypnotism places at his 
disposal, for him to become a new being. He should 
acquire magnetic action upon exterior objects, the deep 
penetration of the look, and the immediate perception 
of the thoughts of others through his own thoughts, 
without losing possession of himself and with the con- 
tinuity of memory which alone preserves one's in- 
dividuality. It would mean that instead of keeping in 
himself two distinct personalities — his normal self and 
the abnormal self which hypnotism develops — he 
would be able to fuse these two personalities into 
one, thereby uniting their diverse potentialities. 

Perhaps the universal and regulated practise of hyp- 
notism, the methodical alternation of the normal and 
the hypnotic states, habit and heredity, will bring about 
this fusion of selves and so the creation of a new 
humanity. 

Vainly will it be objected that these new powers 
which man must assimilate manifest themselves during 



APPENDICES 315 

states of coma or pain, and that, thus, they are repug- 
nant to the healthy normal being. It is exactly here 
that the human being is lacking: in those elements of 
coordination and fusion between the normal state and 
the new powers. 

Who can say that throughout the immense evolu- 
tion from amphibia to man, all progress has not been 
linked with periods of crises and suffering? When the 
first fish transformed its fins into wings to fly in the air, 
who knows that its respiratory organs did not suffer as 
a result? The unrest and anxiety which children mani- 
fest at the approach of sleep are thoroughly character- 
istic. The state of sleeping and that of waking are 
two radically different states, and the passage from 
one to the other constitutes in Itself a veritable revolu- 
tion. We are accustomed to It now, and are uncon- 
scious of It; but the little child is not accustomed to 
It, and suffers from It. Perhaps, even. It Is afraid? 

Little by little, we are able to assimilate ourselves 
to sleep, which is, In spite of appearance, a violent 
state of being, since It Is the suppression of the definite 
personality which we govern, to be replaced by an 
obscure personality which governs Itself, and which 
often feeds upon monstrous sentiments and frightful 
visions. 

And when man shall have assimilated the potentiali- 
ties of the magnetic and hypnotic states, can we not 
realize how, in the current of everyday life, the human 
organism may then become an accessory? No doubt It 
would remain present In his consciousness, as the nee- 





3i6 APPENDICES 

essary root of his individuality; but the "ego," the 
** self," would be capable of moving, by direct voli- 
tion, other bodies than his own. 

It would no longer be, then, the exclusive soul of a 
particular organism, but rather the soul of all things as 
far as its action could extend. And if it could apply 
itself to the whole universe, it would then become the 
soul of the world. 



INDEX 



INDEX 



Academie des Sciences, 20, 21 
Active hypotheses, 50 
Agrippa, 293 
Alrutz, Sydney, 168-171 
Analogical hypotheses, 72 
Animal magnetism, 8, 16, 24, etc. 
Auguste M. (subject), 215-217 
Automatic writing, 59, 259 
Automatisme psychologique, 23 
Autoscopy, 235 
Autosuggestion, 54, 56 
Azam, Dr., 99 

Babinski, Prof., 25 
Bacon, 46, 57, 64, 141 
Bardonnet, 150, 153, 154 
Barety, Dr., 148, 167, i68 
Beaunis, M. H., 187-190 
Belief, importance of, 212, 221, 

257, 271 
Bergson, Prof., 43 
Berillon, 14, 91 
Bernard, Claude, 21, 46, 48, 49, 

53, 64, 67, 68, 228 
Bernheim, Dr., 8, 12, 33, 110-114, 

133, 143, 147 
Biactinic force, 26, 60, etc. 
Biactinism, 8, 26, etc. 
Binet, Dr., 210 
Bioraagnetic action, 158 
Boirac Method, 88, 165 
Braid, 115, 129, 147, 165 
Branly, 21 
Buckley, Major, 240, 241 



Cagliostro, 258 
Camisards of Cevennes, 99 
Campanella, 294 
Catalepsy, 95 

Charcot, 8, 12, 92, 94, 95, 211 
Chevreul, 28 
Clairvoyance, 28, 61, etc. 

psychological, 187 
Coe, Prof., 302 
Communication of emotions, 183 

of movement, 184 

of thought, 27, 28, etc. 
Comte, Auguste, 5, 13 
Convulsionaries of St. Medard, 

99 
Cours theoretique et pratique de 

Braidisme, 125 
Credulity, state of, 103 
Crocq, Dr., 83, 116, 117 
Crookes, William, 12, 36, 44, 97, 

264 
Cross-correspondences, 286 
Cryptopsychism, 24, 25, etc. 
Crystal gazing, 59, 258 
Cumberlandism, 190 
Curie, Pierre, 21 
Cuvier, 177 

Deleuze, 44, 144, 155 
Descartes, 36, 153, 154, 229, 267 
Dissociation of the personality, 

23, 59 
Divining-rod, cause of movement 

of, 28, 258 



319 



320 



INDEX 



Dreams of a Spirit Seer, 278 
Duchatel, Edmond, 28, 283 
Dufay, Dr., 242-247 
Dumontpallier, 12 
Dupond, Madame, case of, 268- 

270 
Du Potet, 44, 144, 155 
Du Prel, Carl, 297 
Durand de Gros, 8, 14, 56, 79, 

108, 124, 125 
Durville, Gaston, 84 

Emden Prize, Fanny, 20 
Emotional diapsychism, 183 
Esprits et mediums, 23, 268-270, 

Eusapia Palladino, see Palladino 
Experimental Method, 21, 41, etc. 

reasoning, 67 
Exteriorization of the sensitive- 
ness, 24, 214-218, 237 

Faria, Abbe, 33 
Fascination, state of, 103 
Flournoy, Prof., 12, 20, 39, 264, 

268-270, 273, 305 
Fouillee, Alfred, 122, 308 

Galvani, 17 

Gasparin, Count de, 264 

Geley, Gustave, 37, 39, 255 

Gibert, Dr., 191-198 

Girault, Dr., 242-245 

Grasset, 20 

Gregory, William, 12, 44, 176, 

178, 180, 183, 201, 207-209, 

240 
Grove, Mrs. (medium), 285 
Gustave, P. (subject), 198, 217- 

220 



Hericourt, M. J., 198 
Herteville, Madame, case of, 278, 

279 
Hodgson, Dr. Richard, 275, 305 
Home, D. D., 16 
Human Personality, 276, 282 
Husson, Dr., 44 
Hyloscopy, 15, 24, etc. 
Hypnoidal phenomena, 23, 34, etc. 
Hypnoscope, 83 
Hypnotism, 8, 23, etc. 
Hypotaxy, 108, 124, 129 

Idea-forces, law of, 122 
Illusion, 47, 70, 73, 74 
Inert hypotheses, 50 
Inductive hypotheses, 72 
Intellectual diapsychism, 181, 186 
Intermittent subjects, 127 
Introduction a Vetude experimen- 
tal de la medicine, 53 

James, William, 12, 275, 301, 302, 

307, 308 
Janet, Dr. Pierre, i2, 23, 59, 100, 

168, 177, 191-198, 272, 296, 

305 
Jaures, Jean, 309 
Jean B., case of, 248-253 
Jean M. (subject), 217 
Joire, Paul, 12 
Jussieu, Antolne-Laurent de, 44, 

161 

Kant, 278 
Kernig, 93 
Kircher, Father, 117 

Lafontaine, Charles, 44, 81 
Lajoie, Dr., 116 



INDEX 



321 



La Magie science naturelle, 291 

La realite du monde sensible, 309 

Lasegue, 93 

Laverdant, case of, 125, 128, 141 

Leqons d'anatomie, 177 

Le diagnostic de la suggestibilite, 

86 
Leibnitz, 151 
Leonie (Madame B.), 177, 191- 

198 
Lethargy, 56, 95, etc. 
Letters to a Candid Inquirer on 

Animal Magnetism, 176, 178 
L'homme et I'inielligence, 77, 82 
Liebeault, Dr., 8, 33, 131, 133, 144, 

187-190 
Liegeois, Dr., 33 
Lodge, Sir Oliver, 12, 44, 275-288, 

305 
Lucidity, 242-253, 262 
Lucidity and Intuition, 28, 255 
Ludovig S. (subject), 179, 203, 

217, 238-240 
Luys, Dr., ii6 



MacAlpine, Madame, case of, 
282 

Magnetic rapport, 142, 236, 258 

Magnetoidal phenomena, 24, 26, 
etc. 

Marie (subject), 242-247 

Marmontel Case, The, 279-282 

Memory, 233, 234, 254 

Mental suggestion, 27, 34 

Mesmer, 8, 12, 34, 35, 144, 145- 
147, i55» 161-164 

Mesmerism, see Animal Magnet- 
ism 

Metagnomy, 10, 63, etc. 



Metapsychic phenomena, defined, 

38 
Mill, Stuart, 64, 138 
Mohammed, 99 
Motor diapsychism, 184 
Moutin Process, 70, 85-93, 165 
Myers, Frederic, 12, 275, 276, 278, 

282, 283, 305 

Neuric force, 148 
Neurocritic process, 87, 92 
Neuromuscular hyperexcitability, 

211 

Nevroses et idees fixes, 23 
Newnham, Madame (medium), 

277 
Noiset, General, 33 

OcHOROwicz, Dr., 83, 188 
Osty, Dr., 205, 237, 255, 262 
Our Hidden Forces, 6, 21, 22, 27, 
etc. 

Palladino, Eusapia, 16, 21, 299 
Paradoxical suggestion, 123 
Parapsychic phenomena, defined, 

Passivity, state of, 103, 104 

Pasteur, 21 

Pendulum of Chevreul, 28, 88, 258 

Perception, 233 

Perceptive telepsychism, 272 

Philips, Dr., 125, 129 

Phreno-magnetism, 207-209 

Piper, Mrs., 284, 285, 298 

Plausible suggestion, 123 

Polarity, phenomenon of, 218, 219 

Polyetism, 56 

Pouchet, Prof., 223 

Prevision, 233, 234 



322 



INDEX 



Psychical sciences, classification 

of, 22, 34 
Psychodynamy, 34 
Psychometry, 28, 254, 272 
Puysegur, Marquis de, 44, 120, 

144, 155, 175 

QuACKENBOS, Dr. John, 240 

Radiant state, 97 

Raymond S. (subject), 248-253 

Reading through the finger-tips, 

238-240 
Reichenbach, 12, 147 
Reinforced suggestion, 132 
Richet, Charles, 12, 20, 36, 44, 77, 

82, 127, 135, 200, 264, 305 
Rochas, Colonel de, 20, 36, 214, 

215, 237 
Romberg, 93 
Ruault, Albert, 198, 224-227 

School of Charcot, 211 
of Nancy, 7, 14, 20, etc. 
of Paris, 133 
of the Salpetriere, 7, 20, 23, etc. 

Schrenk-Notzing, Dr. von, 205 

Second sight, 242-253 

Sensitivometer, 84 

Sensorial diapsychism, 180, 181 

Sheyne-Stockes, 93 

Sidgwick, Prof. Henry, 275, 284, 

305 
Simulation, 48, 55, 56, 70, 73 

Sollier, Dr., 235 



Somnambulism, 56, 59, etc. 

Spiritism, 9, 29-31, etc. 

Spiritoidal phenomena, 24, 34, etc. 

Subconsciousness, phenomena of, 
24 

Suggestibility, methods of deter- 
mining, 81-93 

Suggestion, 7, 23, etc. 

Suggestometer, 84 

Surmval of Man, The, 275 

Swedenborg, 279 

Teleopsy, 242 
Telepathy, 24, 27, etc. 
Telepsychism, 24, 34, etc. 
Terrien, Dr., 257 
Thompson, Mrs. (medium), 285 
Thury, Prof., 147, 264 
Torpor, state of, 103, 104 
Transference, phenomenon of, 

209-212 
Transmission of thought, 24, 27, 

etc. 

Vaschide, Dr., 205 

Verrall, Madame (medium), 278, 

280-282 
Vielet, Victor, 120, 176 
Vision at a distance, 242 
Voisin, Auguste, 116 

Wiltshire, Sir, 241, 242 

Zoomagnetisme, 144 
Zschokke, 176 



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